THE 


SOUTHERN    EMPIRE 


WITH    OTHER   PAPERS 


BY 


OLIVER  T.  MORTON 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 

Efje  RiliersiDe  }9res0,  Cambridge 


Copyright,  1892, 
BY  OLIVER  T.  MORTON. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Company. 


£4-59 


TO   MY  MOTHER. 


M532981 


CONTENTS. 


THE    SOUTHERN    EMPIRE. 

PAGE 

The  Conjecture i 

Its  Difficulties 2 

Presentment  of  the  Federal  Grand  Jury  ...  3 

The  Golden  Circle 4 

The  Dream  of  Empire 4 

The  Causes  of  the  War  as  they  are  writ  by  its 

Makers 5 

The  Slaveholders  and  the  Constitution  ...  6 

The  Free  and  Slave  Systems  briefly  compared  .  8 

The  Law  governing  the  Economy  of  the  South  .  9 
The  Effect  of  Slavery  upon  the  Slaves,  Land,  and 

Agriculture 10 

The  Planter  needed  New  Soil 11 

But  he  also  needed  Slaves  .  .  .  .  .12 

The  Cotton  Gin 13 

The  Cruelties  of  Slavery  ......  13 

The  Foreign  Slave  Trade 14 

Governor  Adams's  Message  .  .  .  .  15 

Other  Phases  of  the  Movement  16 


VI  CONTENTS. 

Extent  and  Profits  of  Piratical  Slaving     .•        .         .17 
International  Slave  Trade  inevitable         .        .         .       17 
The  Two  Objects  of  Southern  Revolution         .         .       18 
Economics  of  Slavery  further  considered  .        .        .18 
Sociology  of  Slavery          .         .         .         .         .         .21 

Feudalism  in  the  South     .         .         .         .         .         .21 

The  "  Mean-White  "  Population        ....       23 

The  Moral  Aspect  of  Slavery 25 

The  Politics  of  Slavery 26 

The  Gulf  of  Mexico  .......       27 

Florida 28 

Destruction  of  "  Negro  Fort  " 29 

Cession  of  Florida 30 

The  Second  Seminole  War 31 

The  Balance  of  Power 32 

Texas         .........       33 

Houston's  War 35 

Recognition  and  Annexation  of  Texas      ...       36 

Manifest  Destiny 37 

Slidell's  Mission         .......       37 

Contemplated  Spoliation  and  Annexation  of  Mexico      38 
Attitude  of  the  Northern  People        .        .  -39 

Compromise  of  1850 .         .         .         .         .  42 

Kansas-Nebraska  Bill        .         .         .         •  .,.-.       43 
Benton's  Outline  of  the  Southern  Empire         .        .      43 
Gadsden's  Mission    .        .        ...        .        .  44 

Cuba.         .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .46 

Stephen  A.  Douglas.         .  \  . .    '    .        .    •    .      47 

Lopez         .        .        .     . ...  .      .        .        .        .        .      48 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

Order  of  the  Lone  Star 48 

Guanajuato        ........  48 

Purpose  of  Southern  Secession          .         .        .         .51 

Crittenden  Compromise     ......  52 

Thaddeus  Stevens 53 

The  Rebellion  the  Result  of  a  Conspiracy        .         .  53 

Provincialism  of  the  Southern  People       ...  54 
Their  Misconception  of  the  North    .                 .         -55 

Impotency  of  the  Central  Government      ...  56 

Bravery  of  the  Southern  People  in  War   ...  58 

Disappearance  of  Republican  Forms  59 

The  Southern  Empire 60 

Its  Military  Character 60 

Its  Growth         ........  61 

The  Reopening  of  the  Slave  Trade  61 

Why  an  Empire  and  not  a  Republic  61 

Disintegration  and  Reunion  of  the  North          .         .  62 

Decline  of  the  Southern  Empire        ....  63 

Loss  of  Northern  Provinces       .....  64 

Suppression  of  the  Slave  Trade         ....  64 

Fall  of  the  Southern  Empire     .....  65 

OXFORD. 

Introduction 69 

Origin  of  the  Town 71 

The  Castle         ........  71 

The  Coming  of  the  Monks 72 

Alfred  not  the  Founder  of  the  University          .         .  73 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

The  Irish  Missionaries      .        .  .        .  73 

The  Church  and  Learning         .  .         .         .74 

The  Decline  of  Learning  .  ...  .  -75 
Charlemagne  and  Alfred  .  .  .  .  .  -75 

Monastic  Instruction 76 

Scotus  Erigena  and  Gerbert      .        .        .         .         -77 

The  Twelfth  Century 77 

Monastic  Schools  the  Germ  Cells  of  the  Universities       78 
The  Rise  of  the  Halls        .         .        .         .         .         .78 

The  Universities  as  Literary  Republics    .         .         .       78 

The  Term  "  University  " 79 

The  University  of  Salernum      .         .         .         .         -79 

Saracenic  Influence  in  Europe  .....       80 

Irnerius  creates  the  University  of  Bologna       .         .       80 
Effect  of  the  Revival  of  the  Roman  Law  ...       80 
Vacarius  in  Oxford    .         .         .         .         .         .         .81 

Conflict  between  the  Civil  and  the  Common  Law     .       81 

The  "Nations" 82 

Migration  of  Students 84 

Two  Nations  in  Oxford     ......       84 

Rise  of  the  German  University  System  ...  85 
Secession  from  Paris  ......  85 

Oxford  becomes  a  University 85 

Three  Secessions  from  Oxford  .         .        .        ...      86 

St.  Scholastica's  Day        .        .        .        .        .        .86 

The  Town  does  Penance  .        .        .       ...        .       86 

The  Number  of  Students  at  Oxford .  -.  .  .  87 
Chaucer's  Portrait  of  an  Oxford  "  Clerk  "  .  •  .  88 
Turbulence  of  Student  Life  ...  .  .89 


CONTENTS.  ix 

Advent  of  the  Colleges 89 

The  University  and  the  Colleges  distinct ...  90 

Merton  College ........  90 

Balliol  College 91 

New  College 92 

Wood's  List  of  Oxford  Schoolmen   ....  93 

Revival  of  the  Theory  of  Universals         ...  94 

Roscellin  and  Anselm         ......  94 

William  of  Champeaux  and  Abelard         ...  94 

Hales  and  Grostete 95 

Thomas  Aquinas        .......  95 

Duns  Scotus      ........  96 

Ockham  ends  the  Controversy  of  Universals    .         .  96 

Ockham  the  Forerunner  of  Wycliffe          ...  97 

Failure  of  the  Scholastic  System       ....  98 

Meagreness  of  Knowledge 99 

Roger  Bacon      ........  101 

Physical  Attributes  of  Mediaeval  Oxford  .         .         .103 

Pestilence  at  Oxford 104 

The  Art  of  Medicine 105 

Wy  cliff  e     . 106 

Jesus  College 108 

The  Beginnings  of  English  Prose      ....  109 

Tyndale  and  Campanella no 

Colet,  More,  and  Erasmus  .  .  .  .  .  1 1 1 
Oxford  in  Advance  of  Wittenberg  .  .  .  .113 
"  Greeks  and  Trojans  "  at  Oxford  .  .  .  .114 

Bruno  visits  Oxford 115 

The  Heliocentric  Doctrine         .  116 


X  CONTENTS. 

Religious  Persecution  at  Oxford       .        .        .        .     116 

Under  Henry  VIII.  .        ...        .        .        .     116 

Under  Edward  VI.    .        .       ,.      V       .        .        .     117 
Under  Mary       .        .        .  .        .        .        .118 

Ridley,  Latimer,  and  Cranmer  .        .        .        f        .118 
Bodleian  Library        .         .         .         .         .         .         .119 

Leicester's  Work  as  Chancellor         .        .         .         .119 

Amy  Robsart     .         .         .        .        .        .        .         .     1 20 

Her  Funeral       .         .         .        ,  .        .         .120 

Mistakes  of  Scott      .         .         .        .'./'.     121 

St.  Mary  the  Virgin's  Church    .         .        .        .        .     122 

Magdalen  College .122 

Its  Gardens        . 122 

Addison     .        .         *        * '123 

Vandalism  of  the  Puritans         .         .         .         .         .123 

King  Charles  in  the  Town 124 

Cromwell  as  Chancellor     .         .         .         .         .         .124 

Song  of  "  The  English  Anacreon  "    .         .         .         .125 

University  Decree  of  1683         .        .        .         .         .128 

James  II.  in  Oxford  . 129 

William  Penn  expelled  from  Christ  Church      .         .130 
Origin  of  Christ  Church    .         .         .         .  .     130 

Its  Bells     .        .        .        .        .       ...        .        »     131 

Expulsion  of  John  Locke  .         .         .         .         -          -132 

John  Wesley  at  Oxford      ......        .133 

The  Methodist  Club .         .        .  ,     «,     *        .        .     133 

Whitefield. .     133 

Wesley's  Political  Sermon         .         .         ...        .     134 

His  Epitaph       .        .        .         .         .         .         .         .     134 


CONTENTS.  Xi 

Berkeley  and  Butler  .         ......     135 

Tractarianism 135 

Gibbon  expelled  from  Magdalen       .         .         .         .137 

Doctor  Johnson  of  Pembroke 137 

Shelley  and  Landor  expelled 137 

The  University  of  the  Last  Century  .  .  .138 
The  Modern  University  .  .  .  .  .  139 

Oxford  and  Cambridge 140 

SOME    POPULAR    OBJECTIONS    TO    CIVIL 
SERVICE   REFORM. 

Do  Revolutions  go  backwards  ?  145 

Introduction  of  the  Spoils  System     ....     146 

Andrew  Jackson 147 

Theory  of  the  American  Commonwealth  .         .         .     148 
Madison's  Theory  of  Removal .         .         .  .     148 

Political  Brigandage .......     149 

The  Reformers  .        .         .         .         .        .        .        .150 

The  Civil  Service  Law 150 

First  Forty  Years  of  the  Republic  .  .  .  .151 
Feudal  System  in  American  Politics  .  .  .153 
The  Spoils  System  and  the  Slave  System  .  .154 
Doctrine  of  Civil  Service  Reform  .  .  .  .158 

The  President  and  the  Clerk 163 

Anglophobia 166 

The  Spoils  System  imported  from  England  .  .167 
Civil  Service  Reform  in  England  .  .  .  .168 
Aristocracy 171 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

Bureaucracy .         .172 

Insolence  of  Office 172 

The  Professional  Politician       .         .         .         .  173 

His  Absolute  Power.         .         .         .        .         .         .     174 

The  Citizen  as  an  Office-H older        .         .        .  175 

The  Office-Holder  in  Politics 177 

Competitive  Examinations         .         .         .         .         .178 

Their  Educational  Value  .         .         .         .         .         .180 

Their  Influence  upon  Character        .         .         .,        .181 
Qualifications  of  the  Office-Holder    .         .         .         .182 

Functions  of  the  Commission    .         .         .         .         .183 

Impotency  of  Heads  of  Bureaus        ....     184 

Jackson  and  the  Four- Year  Law        .         .         .         .185 

Corruption  of  Jackson's  Administration    .         .         .186 

Deficits  under  Van  Buren 187 

Rotation  in  Office      .......     187 

Its  Possibilities 188 

Business  and  Politics         .         .         .         .         .         .189 

The  Art  of  Administration  in  the  United  States  .  190 
Incapacity  of  Municipal  Government  .  .  .190 

Presidential  Appointments 191 

The  Cabinet 192 

Rotation  in  the  United  States 193 

View  of  the  Founders  of  the  Republic  .  .  .194 
Change  wrought  by  Custom  .  .  .  .  .196 
Calhoun  on  the  Four- Year  Law  .  .'  .  .  197 
Theory  of  John  Stuart  Mill  '.  .  .  ."  .198 
Election  of  Postmasters  .  »  •  .  .199 

Responsibility  Vital  to  Good  Government      .  .         .     200 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

Weakness  of  the  Four- Year  Law      .         .         .         .201 

The  Act  of  1820 202 

Later  Legislation 203 

Limited  Application  of  the  Pendleton  Act         .         .  204 

The  Four-Year  Law  should  be  repealed     .         .        .  205 

Effects  of  Rotation  summarized  206 


THE   SOUTHERN    EMPIRE. 


THE   SOUTHERN    EMPIRE.1 


WHAT  would  be  the  condition  of  the  Western 
world  to-day  if  Southern  rebellion  had  become 
revolution  ?  is  a  question  which  may  sometimes 
give  us  pause. 

Unfortunately,  it  is  growing  increasingly  diffi 
cult  to  answer  it ;  to  realize  the  past,  and  there 
by  to  imagine  what  would  have  been.  The  war 
has  nearly  lapsed  from  memory  into  tradition. 
Its  triumphs  and  sufferings,  its  hopes  and  fears, 
are  fast  fading  with  distance,  and  soon  will  be 
wrapped  in  the  mists  of  forgetfulness.  The  im 
agination,  dulled  by  time,  fails  longer, to  body 
forth  the  forms  of  averted  perils,  and  the  dread 
alternative,  disunion,  has  almost  lost  its  meaning. 
Yet  it  was  once  real  enough,  near  enough. 

1  The  economic  and  historic  data  contained  in  this  essay  are 
drawn  from  sources  easily  accessible,  and  will  be  readily  identi 
fied  by  the  good  readers  of  history.  Marginal  references  are, 
therefore,  omitted. 


2  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

In  the  downfall  of  the  slave  power  a  distinct 
civilization  perished,  with  institutions  and  ideals 
alien  to  the  age ;  and  "  the  next  generation 
[says  a  recent  biographer  of  Calhoun]  will  find 
it  easier  to  form  an  adequate  conception  of  the 
ancient  Egyptians  and  Indians  than  of  their 
own  grandfathers."  The  historian  with  much 
to  record  concerns  himself  but  little  with  a  con 
tingency  which  did  not  occur,  and  the  probable 
future  of  the  great  slave  federation  barely  re 
ceives  from  him  the  empty  compliment  of  a 
passing  conjecture.  The  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  a  philosophical  forecast  may  be  pleaded  in 
extenuation,  for  they  are  great.  But  if  there  be 
a  science  of  history  based  upon  a  study  of  uni 
formities,  if  we  may  reason  from  cause  to  effect 
in  human  affairs,  deducing  the  laws  which  gov 
ern  a  certain  state  of  society,  and,  per  contra, 
deducing  a  civilization  from  the  continued  oper 
ation  of  certain  laws,  the  social  and  economic 
conditions  existing  in  the  South  before  the  war 
are  a  legitimate  subject  of  investigation,  and 
furnish  a  basis  for  rational  speculation.  What 
is,  we  know ;  what  was  to  have  been,  let  us 
consider. 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  3 

During  the  May  term,  1862,  the  Federal 
grand  jury  for  the  District  of  Indiana  returned 
nearly  two  hundred  indictments  of  persons  be 
longing  to  a  certain  treasonable  organization, 
known  as  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  —  a 
society  formed  to  discourage  enlistments  in  the 
Union  armies,  and  otherwise  to  give  aid  and  com 
fort  to  the  States  then  in  rebellion.  At  the 
conclusion  of  its  labors,  the  grand  jury  made  a 
presentment  to  the  court,  which  contained  the 
following  paragraph  :  — 

"  From  the  evidence  introduced  before  said 
grand  jury,  it  would  seem  that  the  Order  called  the 
Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  had  its  origin  in  some 
of  the  Southern  States,  and  was  introduced  into  this 
State  from  Kentucky.  Its  primary  object,  when  it 
originated,  was  to  organize  the  friends  of  the  institu 
tion  of  African  slavery  in  the  United  States  for  the 
purpose  of  acquiring  more  territory  in  Mexico  and 
the  Central  American  States  ;  also  the  acquisition 
of  Cuba,  thereby  to  extend  and  foster  a  great  slave 
empire,  even  though  it  should  dye  those  countries  in 
human  blood.  Hence  the  various  raids  made  upon 
those  countries." 

These   conclusions   are  the  gleanings  of  an 


4  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

examination  of  many  witnesses  made  by  a  jury 
possessing  character  and  intelligence,  and  are 
significant  as  affording  not  merely  a  key  to  the 
purposes  of  a  secret  order,  but  a  revelation  of 
the  real  aim  and  object  of  the  great  slave  move 
ment  itself.  Whatever  the  extent  and  impor 
tance  of  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  that 
society  was,  in  its  essence,  truly  representative 
of  the  daring  ambition  of  the  Southern  leaders. 
Its  purpose  was,  as  has  been  stated,  to  found 
a  gigantic  tropical  slave  empire.  The  Golden 
Circle  was  a  line  drawn  from  Havana  as  a  centre, 
with  a  radius  of  sixteen  degrees  latitude  and 
longitude.  Here  was  a  vast  domain  adapted  to 
slave  labor,  extending  from  the  confluence  of  the 
Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  to  the  Isthmus  of 
Darien,  and  from  the  West  Indies  to  the  Pacific 
coast  of  Mexico. 

Mr.  Draper,  the  historian,  in  his  composite  of 
Southern  opinion,  pictures  this  imperial  realm : 

"  As  the  Romans,  basing  their  political  life  on  a 
slave  system,  and  availing  themselves  of  the  advan 
tages  of  an  interior  sea,  soon  brought  their  feebler 
neighbors  into  subjection,  solidly  establishing  them 
selves  all  around  the  Mediterranean,  so  the  Gulf  of 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  5 

Mexico  and  the  Caribbean  will  be  a  Mediterranean 
for  us.  Feeble  communities,  such  as  those  of  Mexico 
and  Central  America,  can  be  easily  conquered  by 
arms,  or  still  more  easily  by  gold.  They  will  submit 
to  the  fate  of  Egypt,  and  Syria,  and  Greece.  Cuba, 
Jamaica,  Hayti  will  follow  the  fate  of  Cyprus,  Sar 
dinia,  Sicily.  Across  a  narrow  isthmus  is  the  Paci 
fic  Ocean,  and  where  the  West  merges  into  the  East 
are  the  venerable  empires  and  the  wealth  of  Asia." 

Such  the  dream  !  Truly,  a  regal  concept  of 
barbaric  splendor,  as  alluring  to  the  adventurous 
as  the  cloud-built  city  of  the  Sun,  which  sits 
enthroned  at  the  horizon,  a  gleaming  cluster  of 
golden  minarets  and  spires.  Was  it  as  insub 
stantial  ?  Was  it  but  the  despairing  hope  of  the 
fatuous,  the  idle  fantasy  of  the  fool  ?  Let  us 
see. 

The  secret  history  of  the  war  remains,  to  be 
written,  the  motives  of  the  leading  conspirators 
to  be  explored.  The  alleged  causes  of  the  con 
flict  from  the  pens  of  some  of  them,  the  enu 
meration  of  constitutional  quibbles,  are  mere 
casuistry.  The  President  and  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  would  have  a 
credulous  posterity  believe  that  the  South  tried 


6  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

to  separate  from  the  North,  at  the  expense  of  a 
bloody  and  desolating  war,  simply  to  establish  a 
naked  and  abstract  proposition  of  constitutional 
law.  But  posthumous  confessions,  offered  by 
way  of  special  pleading,  are  not  the  sole  reposi 
tories  of  history.  It  is  writ  otherwise,  uncon 
sciously  yet  indelibly.  The  slaveholders  in  the 
pursuit  of  their  ends  were  utterly  indifferent  to 
constitutional  trammels.  They  used  the  Con 
stitution  as  a  shield  or  a  sword,  as  necessity  or 
convenience  dictated.  They  adopted  what  has 
been  called  the  "patent  reversible  process  of 
construction."  They  localized  slavery  in  the 
Territories  of  Missouri,  Arkansas,  and  Florida 
by  loose  construction,  and  when  those  Terri 
tories  became  States  they  protected  it  from 
governmental  interference  by  strict  construc 
tion.  When  they  agreed  to  the  Missouri  Com 
promise,  which  prohibited  slavery  in  all  of  the 
territory  north  of  line  36°  30',  they  affirmed 
the  power  of  Congress  to  regulate  slavery  in  the 
Territories.  Afterwards,  when  they  failed  to 
extend  this  line  through  the  Mexican  purchase, 
they  repealed  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and 
advocated  the  doctrine  of  squatter  sovereignty, 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  J 

namely,  that  the  people  of  the  Territories  must 
decide  the  question  of  slavery  for  themselves, 
free  from  congressional  interference  and  without 
reference  to  latitude.  But  in  the  struggle  to 
make  the  free  soil  of  Kansas  slave,  they  were 
unsuccessful,  and  then  came  the  Dred  Scott 
decision,  which  overturned  both  of  the  preceding 
propositions  by  denying  in  effect  the  power 
either  of  the  people  or  of  Congress  to  keep 
slavery  out  of  any  Territory.  The  conflict  which 
followed  was  "irrepressible."  Mr.  Calhoun  and 
the  abolitionists  were  the  prophets  of  their  time. 
Had  there  been  no  doctrine  of  state  sovereignty, 
the  exigencies  of  slavery  would  have  devised  it ; 
or,  even  lacking  it,  the  South  would  have  jus 
tified  its  action  in  the  residuary  right  of  revo 
lution,  should  it  have  cared  to  justify  it  at  all. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  at  the  time  of  secession,  "a 
decent  respect  to  the  opinions  of  mankind  "  did 
not,  in  its  judgment,  require  that  it  should  de 
clare  the  causes  which  impelled  the  separation. 
We  may,  therefore,  in  this  brief  review,  skirt 
the  howling  deserts  of  constitutional  law,  and 
seek  a  more  fruitful  region. 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 


II. 

To  the  American  of  the  commercial  present 
the  scheme  of  empire  above  adverted  to  may 
seem  to  be  highly  visionary.  The  dry  recital 
of  the  American  court  reads  like  a  page  of 
romance,  fictious  and  fanciful.  Yet  it  contains 
the  soberest  fact  in  American  history.  The 
Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  and  the  Order 
of  the  Lone  Star,  together  with  the  countless 
other  filibustering  societies  which  abounded  in 
the  South  during  forty  years  before  the  war, 
were  but  the  natural  expression  of  the  tenden 
cies  of  the  slave  system.  They  were  the  symp 
toms  of  a  disease,  the  evidence  of  a  state  of 
mind. 

Fundamentally,  the  rebellion  was  a  contest  be 
tween  two  antagonistic  labor  or  social  systems, 
the  one  free,  the  other  slave  ;  the  one  industrial 
and  based  upon  contract,  the  other  militant  and 
based  upon  status.  The  one  encouraged  indi 
vidual  independence,  promoted  intelligence,  and 
fostered  invention,  thereby  multiplying  its  pro 
ductive  power  many  fold  ;  the  other  crushed  the 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  9 

spirit  by  fettering  the  body,  and  conserved  igno 
rance.  The  one  invited  immigration  by  enno 
bling  labor ;  the  other  repelled  immigration  by 
making  labor  the  badge  of  servitude.  The  one 
created  citizens,  the  other  subjects.  In  fine,  the 
one  tended  to  build  up  a  free  republic,  the  other 
tended  to  the  construction  of  a  servile  empire. 

The  unwritten,  irreversible  law  governing  the 
economy  of  the  South  demanded  two  things  : 
a  progressively  expanding  territory  and  an  in 
crease  in  the  number  of  slaves.  As  these  were 
the  organic  forces  which  made  for  empire,  they 
require  a  somewhat  extended  and  technical  ex 
position. 

The  acquisition  of  land  by  the  South  was  an 
economical  necessity.  Slave  labor  impoverished 
and  tainted  where  it  touched.  It  was  "  unskill 
ful  and  given  reluctantly."  The  slave  worked 
just  enough  to  avoid  corporal  or  other  punish 
ment,  as  the  value  of  any  superior  degree  of  effi- 
ciency*accrued  to  the  master  and  not  to  himself. 
Increased  zeal  meant  increased  burden.  Slaves 
must  be  watched,  and  therefore,  working  in 
gangs,  their  usefulness  was  curtailed.  They 
were  confined  to  the  culture  of  cotton,  tobacco, 


IO  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

sugar,  and  rice,  which  admitted  of  the  employ 
ment  of  many  within  a  limited  space,  under  the 
eye  of  the  overseer.  But  on  cereal  lands  they 
could  not  be  maintained  except  at  a  loss.  One 
freeman  for  several  acres  of  wheat,  and  several 
slaves  for  one  acre  of  cotton,  roughly  defines 
the  limitations  of  the  slave  system.  The  slaves 
lacked  versatility.  They  were  unfitted  for  man 
ufacturing,  as  they  had  not  the  deftness  and 
education  essential  to  the  artisan,  nor  the  stimu 
lation  of  material  gain  or  of  prospective  eman 
cipation.  Instructed  with  difficulty  in  the  art 
of  growing  one  staple,  they  could  not  readily  be 
transferred  to  the  culture  of  another,  and  the 
rotation  of  crops  thus  became  an  impossibility. 
Nor  could  the  planter  let  his  fields  lie  fallow. 
The  support  of  his  slaves  was  a  constant  drain 
upon  his  resources,  and  enforced  a  continuous 
tillage  that  met  with  a  steadily  diminishing  re 
turn.  Moreover,  with  his  entire  capital  invested 
in  slaves,  the  planter  had  nothing  to  af>ply  to 
the  improvement  of  his  lands.  Even  were  it 
possible,  it  were  useless,  to  purchase  agricultural 
implements  of  improved  construction,  as  they 
could  not  be  intrusted  to  the  care  of  slaves. 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  1 1 

Looked  at  in  any  way,  agriculture,  under  the 
Southern  system,  was,  and  must  have  been, 
"artless  and  exhausting."  The  barren  tobacco 
lands  of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  and  the 
abandoned  plantations  throughout  the  South, 
eloquently  bespoke  this  fact.  The  planter 
needed  virgin  soil  obtainable  at  a  nominal  price  ; 
he  would  have  it.  This,  then,  was  one  object 
to  be  attained  by  revolution.  But,  it  may  be 
urged,  that  at  the  time  of  secession,  only  a  small 
portion  of  the  land  of  the  South  was  under 
cultivation ;  that  political  representation  had 
been  the  sole  object  of  the  aggressions  of  the 
slave  power ;  and  that  the  greed  for  land  would 
cease  with  the  South's  connection  with  the 
Union.  It  is  sufficient  to  reply  that,  so  crude 
were  the  processes  of  slave  labor,  none  but  the 
choicest  lands,  those  teeming  with  fertility, 
could  be  cultivated  profitably,  and  these  condi 
tions  imply  comparative  scarcity.  Inferior  soils, 
which  an  enlightened  free  labor  could  have 
made  richly  productive,  and  which  in  a  free 
country  would  have  been  resorted  to  under  pres 
sure  of  population,  were  of  necessity  neglected 
as  wastes,  so  that  the  disproportion  mentioned 


12  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

was  more  apparent  than  real.  If  in  1860  the 
planter  did  not  need  more  land  for  the  purposes 
of  cultivation,  he  would  need  it  within  a  proxi 
mate  period,  and  he  must  hold  the  right  secure 
to  obtain  such  land  by  any  means  that  he  might 
see  fit,  be  they  fair  or  foul.  The  Northern 
conscience  was  an  embarrassing  trammel,  and 
might  not  accommodate  itself  readily  to  the  re 
quirements  of  the  slave  system.  Restrict  slavery 
to  definite  limits,  and  it  must  inevitably  perish. 
A  redundant  population  cannot  subsist  upon 
an  exhausted  soil.  Imprisonment  meant  death. 
The  planter  saw  this  clearly,  and  when  he  re 
ceived  his  first  decisive  check  in  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  struggle,  he  threw  down  the  gage  of 
battle,  and  raised  the  banner  of  Empire. 

But  there  was  a  more  pressing  need  than  land 
—  slaves.  Although  a  clause  denouncing  slav 
ery  had  been  stricken  from  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence,  at  the  instance  of  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia,  it  was  expected,  at  the  time  of  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution,  that  slavery  would 
soon  die  out  of  itself.  Indeed,  the  Constitution 
contemplated  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  in 
1808,  and  when  that  year  came,  the  protest  of 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  13 

the  slaveholders  was  of  the  feeblest.  But. with 
the  invention  of  the  cotton  gin  there  was  a 
permanent  revival  of  slavery.  When  the  plant 
ers  realized  that  a  negro,  with  the  aid  of  this 
machine,  could  cleanse  three  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds  of  cotton  in  a  day,  whereas,  formerly, 
without  it,  he  could  cleanse  only  a  few  pounds, 
the  price  of  slaves  rose  enormously,  and  the 
South  had  found  a  product  which,  it  thought, 
would  command  the  wealth,  and  rule  the  mar 
kets  of  the  civilized  world.  As  the  production 
of  cotton  increased,  the  relations  of  master 
and  slave  lost  "  whatever  patriarchal  character 
they  possessed,"  with  the  exception  of  the 
household  slaves,  who  were  generally  well 
treated,  and  slavery  became  "  a  heartless  busi 
ness  speculation."  The  life  of  a  slaye  was  esti 
mated  in  so  many  bales  of  cotton.  Owing  to 
the  cruelty  and  the  excessive  burdens  imposed, 
the  time  of  the  effective  labor  of  a  slave  on  the 
cotton  plantations  was  reduced  to  seven  years, 
and  on  the  sugar  plantations  to  five  years.  This 
process,  together  with  the  exhaustion  of  the 
soil,  was  pushing  the  color  line  farther  south, 
year  by  year.  The  price  of  slaves  was  rising 


14  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

rapidly.  The  reopening  of  the  slave  trade  was 
a  necessity  and  must  precede  territorial  exten 
sion.  A  Georgian  delegate  to  the  Charleston 
convention  in  1860  went  to  the  root  of  the  mat 
ter  when  he  said :  — 

"  I  believe  that  this  doctrine  of  protection  to 
slavery  in  the  Territories  is  a  mere  theory,  a  mere 
abstraction.  Practically,  it  can  be  of  no  conse 
quence  to  the  South,  for  the  reason  that  the  infant 
has  been  strangled  before  it  was  born.  You  have 
cut  off  the  supply  of  slaves  ;  you  have  crippled  the 
institution  in  the  States  by  your  unjust  laws,  and  it 
is  mere  folly  and  madness  now  to  ask  protection  for 
a  nonentity,  for  a  thing  which  is  not  there.  We  have 
no  slaves  to  carry  to  those  Territories.  We  can  never 
make  another  slave  State  with  our  present  supply  of 
slaves.  And  if  we  could,  it  would  not  be  wise,  for 
the  reason  that  if  you  make  another  slave  State  from 
your  new  Territories  with  the  present  supply  of 
slaves,  you  will  be  obliged  to  give  another  State  — 
either  Maryland,  Delaware,  or  Virginia  —  to  free  soil 
upon  the  North." 

But  Virginia,  a  slave  market,  was  opposed  to 
competition  ;  and  the  Georgian  retorted  :  — 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  15 

"  It  has  been  my  fortune  to  go  into  that  noble  old 
State  to  buy  a  few  darkies,  and  I  have  had  to  pay 
from  $1,000  to  $2,000  a  head,  when  I  could  go  to 
Africa  and  buy  better  negroes  at  $50  apiece.  Un 
questionably  it  is  to  the  interest  of  Virginia  to  break 
down  the  African  slave  trade,  when  she  can  sell  her 
negroes  at  $2,000." 

The  Georgian  delegate  was  by  no  means  sin 
gular  in  his  views.  The  foreign  and  domestic 
slave  trade  might  differ  from  each  other  in  de 
gree,  perhaps,  but  not  in  kind  ;  and  an  objection 
which  would  lie  against  the  one,  and  not  against 
the  other,  must  be  sentimental  rather  than  prac 
tical.  This,  at  least,  was  the  view  of  many  plant 
ers  and  politicians  of  the  South.  The  prohibition 
of  the  slave  trade  was  felt  to  be  a  brand  upon 
the  slaveholder.  In  a  message  to  the  Legisla 
ture  of  South  Carolina  (1857),  Governor  Adams 
argued  that  "  if  the.  slave  trade  be  piracy,  the 
slave  must  be  plunder ; "  and  he  urged  the  with 
drawal  of  "  assent  to  an  act  which  is  in  itself 
a  direct  condemnation  of  your  institutions."  In 
1858,  a  bill  authorizing  a  company  to  import 
twenty-five  hundred  African  negroes,  who  were 
to  be  indentured  for  at  least  fifteen  years,  passed 


1 6  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

the  Louisiana  House  of  Representatives,  and 
failed  by  only  two  votes  in  the  Senate.  To 
offer  a  premium  for  the  best  specimen  of  an 
imported  African  and  to  propose  a  prize  for 
the  best  sermon  upon  the  ethics  of  such  an  im 
portation  were  but  incidents  of  the  movement. 
Jefferson  Davis  saw  "  no  inhumanity  or  sinful- 
ness  "  in  the  slave  trade,  while  Alexander  H. 
Stephens  wished  to  impress  upon  the  Southern 
mind  "  the  great  truth  that  without  an  increase 
of  African  slaves  from  abroad "  many  more 
slave  States  need  not  be  looked  for. 

However,  the  South  determined  to  bide  the 
issue  of  the  war  before  attempting  to  force  the 
question.  The  constitutional  prohibition  of  the 
slave  trade,  adopted  at  Montgomery,  was  a  part 
of  the  price  of  Virginia's  withdrawal  from  the 
Union,  and  was  a  concession  to  the  sentiment 
of  Europe,  whose  sympathy  and  aid  the  South 
needed  and  expected.  The  slave  trade  was  only 
a  question  of  time  ;  it  would  "  bring  slaves  to  the 
poor  man,  increase  the  population,  and  thereby 
the  value  of  land."  Legal  enactments  prohib 
iting  it  would  be  inoperative,  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact  they  were.  It  is  estimated  that,  during 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  \J 

eighteen  months  of  1859  and  1860,  eighty-five 
vessels  were  fitted  out  from  New  York  city 
alone  for  the  slave  trade,  and  that  from  thirty 
to  sixty  thousand  negroes  were  brought  to  the 
United  States  annually.  De  Bow's  Commercial 
Review  calculated  in  1857  that  forty  slavers 
were  making  a  net  annual  profit  of  about  seven 
teen  millions  of  dollars.  It  is  certain  that,  under 
the  Confederate  government,  the  provision  pro 
hibiting  the  slave  trade  would  have  broken  down 
utterly,  were  it  not  formally  stricken  out  of  the 
Constitution.  The  demand  for  cotton,  which, 
judged  from  the  past,  would  increase  at  the  rate 
of  nearly  100  per  cent,  in  a  decade,  would  make 
this  imperative,  because  the  production  of  slaves 
could  not  be  expected  to  increase  more  than 
thirty  per  cent,  in  the  same  period.  Thus  the 
reopening  of  the  slave  trade  was  the  second  ob 
ject  to  be  attained  by  revolution. 

But  more  land  meant  the  conquest  of  Mexico 
and  Central  America,  as  physical  and  political 
conditions  were  a  sufficient  bar  to  a  northerly 
or  westerly  extension  of  the  Southern  system  ; 
and  more  slaves  meant  the  annexation  of  Cuba, 

—  a  slave   nursery,  —  and  renewed  commerce 
* 


1 8  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

with  the  distant  coasts  of  Africa.  The  inexo 
rable  logic  of  successful  rebellion  was  the  crea 
tion  of  a  tropical  slave  empire. 


III. 

That  this  empire  was  the  inevitable  product 
of  natural  and  social  laws  is  a  proposition  sus 
ceptible  of  much  illustration.  Slavery  was  the 
basal  fact  of  Southern  society,  the  corner-stone 
of  a  feudal  superstructure.  An  impoverished 
people  can  be  neither  independent  nor  intel 
lectual,  and  slavery  was  bankrupting  the  South. 
It  not  only  exaggerated  the  natural  inequalities 
of  the  distribution  of  wealth,  —  that  primal 
cause  of  the  world's  social  disorders,  —  it  para 
lyzed  production.  Itself  inefficient,  it  encour 
aged  improvidence.  The  planters  were  heavily 
in  debt  to  Northern  capitalists,  no  less  because 
of  the  wastefulness  of  the  slave  system  and 
the  abnormally  large  amount  of  capital  that  it 
required,  than  because  of  their  own  extrava 
gance.  Where  to  labor  is  ignominy,  prudence, 
economy,  and  careful  business  methods  fall  un 
der  the  ban.  The  great  wealth  of  the  South 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  19 

was  a  delusion.  The  Northern  hay  crop  alone 
exceeded  in  value  that  of  the  Southern  cotton, 
tobacco,  and  rice  crops.  Cotton  was  king  by 
usurpation,  not  by  right.  The  forcing  system 
reduced  the  price,  and  narrowed  the  margin  of 
profit  to  the  vanishing  point.  But  the  price  of 
slaves  suffered  no  reduction,  being  governed  by 
the  market  value  in  the  most  productive  regions. 
The  number  of  plantations  decreased,  the  larger 
absorbing  the  smaller.  There  was  little  diver 
sity  of  industry  in  the  South,  "  slave  agricul 
ture  by  a  sure  law  banishing  all  pursuits  but  its 
own."  The  South  was  an  exporter  of  raw  mate 
rials,  and  an  importer  of  almost  all  finished  fab 
rics,  necessaries  as  well  as  luxuries.  The  slave 
system  forbade  immigration,  and  the  South  lost 
heavily  by  emigration.  More  than  a  half  mil 
lion  of  its  citizens  sought  the  Middle  and  West 
ern  States,  carrying  with  them  prejudices,  which 
afterwards  found  expression  in  the  black  laws, 
and  in  active  sympathy  with  Southern  and 
Northwestern  secession.  Capital  was  also  driven 
to  the  North,  seeking  profitable  investment.  In 
the  sectional  rivalry  slavery  made  but  a  halting 
race.  The  great  natural  resources  of  the  South, 


20  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

the  exuberant  fertility  of  the  soil,  the  richness 
of  the  mineral  deposits,  and  the  commercial  ad 
vantages  afforded  by  the  coast  line  and  by  the 
great  rivers,  availed  it  naught.  At  the  begin 
ning  of  government,  North  and  South  were 
nearly  equal  in  population,  trade,  and  property. 
But  within  seventy  years,  the  disproportion  be 
tween  the  numbers  and  the  wealth  of  the  two 
sections  became  very  great  and  striking,  and 
was  clearly  traceable  to  the  economic  systems 
respectively  existing.  Out  of  these  systems 
grew  two  civilizations,  which,  differing  in  funda 
mentals,  were  at  last  formally  arrayed  against 
each  other.  That  of  the  North  was  instinct  with 
life  and  progress  ;  that  of  the  South  was  a  relic 
of  the  dark  ages.  The  one  was  the  rosy  child 
of  the  dawn  ;  the  other,  the  gruesome  spectre  of 
a  departing  night. 

The  South  was  never  a  republic  in  the  North 
ern  or  democratic  sense  of  the  word.  It  was 
government  by  aristocracy.  Its  civilization  par 
took  somewhat  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  that  the 
redress  of  many  wrongs  was  referred  to  the  ar 
bitrament  of  arms,  and  in  that  the  laws,  as  in 
the  dawn  of  European  jurisprudence,  were  use- 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  21 

ful  in  confirming  the  abuses  of  a  social  system. 
There  were  few  large  towns,  and  the  planters 
lived  apart  upon  their  estates,  like  the  feudal 
lords  of  an  agricultural  community  before  the 
rise  of  manufacturing.  They  were  the  owners 
of  the  soil  which  was  cultivated  by  their  serfs. 
Their  allegiance  to  the  central  government  they 
held  as  lightly  as  ever  did  feudal  chief  hold  his 
allegiance  to  the  crown,  and  finally  they  took  up 
arms  against  it.  The  Barons'  wars  may  be  found 
in  miniature  in  the  Southern  feuds,  whereby 
whole  families  were  sometimes  extirpated.  In 
the  arts  of  social  life  the  resemblance  was  strong. 
The  planters,  a  leisure  class,  lived  a  free  and 
open-handed  life.  They  devoted  themselves  to 
excitement  and  pleasure,  and  these  they  found 
in  pursuits  as  diverse  as  politics,  gambling,  and 
field  sports.  A  constant  contact  with  a  de 
grading  servitude  made  them  intensely  jealous 
of  their  superiority  and  liberties,  while  their  ab 
solutism  was  that  of  the  manorial  lord.  They 
were  brave  to  daring,  high  spirited,  arrogant, 
and  brutal  in  controversy  ;  and  they  gloried  in 
a  bastard  chivalry.  They  accepted  slavery  as 
an  ordinance  of  nature,  and  they  adopted  its 


22  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

cruelties  without  mitigating  them.  But  to  say 
that  the  slaveholders  were  nevertheless  distin 
guished  by  undeniable  virtues  is  to  utter  no 
greater  paradox  than  is  to  be  found  upon  every 
page  of  the  history  of  morals.  They  were  in, 
but  not  of,  the  industrial  age,  and  they  possessed 
the  vices  and  virtues  of  their  stage  of  civiliza 
tion.  Among  their  finer  attributes  was  a  genial 
and  florid  hospitality,  which  was  partly  the  out 
growth  of  the  loneliness  of  plantation  life.  The 
social  atmosphere  of  the  South  possessed  a  cer 
tain  indolent  charm  imparted  to  it  by  a  leisure 
class  who  were  also  dominant.  There  was  an 
absence  of  the  compelling  rigors  of  the  North 
ern  climate,  and  of  the  Puritanic  element  which 
takes  the  world  and  its  work  seriously.  Out 
side  the  planter  aristocracy,  the  South  was  poor 
in  all  that  goes  to  make  up  modern  civilized 
life.  Slavery  bore  upon  it  with  the  weight  of  a 
dead  hand.  Science  was  without  place  where 
society  was  in  a  primitive  state,  and  useless 
where  labor  was  degraded.  The  diffusion  of 
population  acted  as  a  bar  to  the  growth  of  the 
professions,  and  to  systematic  instruction.  Ed 
ucation  was  denied  by  legal  sanction  to  one  third 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  2$ 

of  the  population,  and  like  law,  was  the  patri 
mony  of  the  rich.  But  the  sociological  condition 
of  the  South  was  most  vividly  reflected  in  that 
melancholy  product  of  the  slave  system,  the 
vagrant  or  "  mean-white  "  population.  In  a 
slave  country  there  is  no  place  for  the  bour 
geoisie,  the  well-to-do  middle  class,  who,  in  Eu 
rope,  have  served  as  the  bulwark  of  liberty. 
As  the  shortest  way  to  a  proper  understanding 
of  the  social  effect  of  slave  labor,  I  may  be 
pardoned  a  long  quotation  from  a  work  of  an 
eminent  political  economist,  the  late  Mr.  Cairnes. 
He  says :  — 

"  It  happens  that  there  are  in  all  slave  countries 
vast  districts,  becoming,  under  the  deteriorating  ef 
fects  of  slave  industry,  constantly  larger,  which  are 
wholly  surrendered  to  nature  and  remain  forever  as 
wilderness.  This  is  a  characteristic  feature  in  the 
political  economy  of  the  Slave  States  of  the  South, 
and  is  attended  with  social  consequences  of  the  most 
important  kind.  For  the  tracts  thus  left,  or  made 
desolate,  become  in  time  the  resort  of  a  numerous 
horde  of  people,  who,  too  poor  to  keep  slaves  and 
too  proud  to  work,  prefer  a  vagrant  and  precarious 
life  spent  in  the  desert  to  engaging  in  occupations 


24  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

which  would  associate  them  with  the  slaves  whom 
they  despise.  In  the  Southern  States  no  less  than 
five  millions  of  human  beings *  are  now  said  to 
exist  in  this  manner  in  a  condition  little  removed 
from  savage  life,  eking  out  a  wretched  subsistence 
by  hunting,  by  fishing,  by  hiring  themselves  out  for 
occasional  jobs,  by  plunder.  Combining  the  rest 
lessness  and  contempt  for  regular  industry  peculiar 
to  the  savage  with  the  vices  of  the  proletaire  of 
civilized  communities,  these  people  make  up  a  class 
at  once  degraded  and  dangerous,  and,  constantly 
reinforced  as  they  are  by  all  that  is  idle,  worthless, 
and  lawless  among  the  population  of  the  neighbor 
ing  States,  form  an  inexhaustible  preserve  of  ruf 
fianism,  ready  at  hand  for  all  the  worst  purposes 
of  Southern  ambition.  The  planters  complain  of 
these  people  for  their  idleness,  for  corrupting  their 
slaves,  for  their  thievish  propensities ;  but  they  can 
not  dispense  with  them ;  for  in  truth  they  perform 
an  indispensable  function  in  the  economy  of  slave 
societies,  of  which  they  are  at  once  the  victims 
and  the  principal  supports.  It  is  from  their  ranks 
that  those  filibustering  expeditions  are  recruited, 
which  have  been  found  so  effective  an  instrument  in 
extending  the  domain  of  the  slave  power  ;  they  fur- 

1  This  number  is  undoubtedly  exaggerated. 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  2$ 

nish  the  border  ruffians  who,  in  the  colonization 
struggle  with  the  Northern  States,  contend  with  Free- 
soilers  in  the  Territories,  and  it  is  to  their  antipathy 
to  the  negroes  that  the  planters  securely  trust  for  re 
pressing  every  attempt  at  servile  insurrection.  Such 
are  the  '  mean  whites  '  or  '  white  trash  '  of  the 
Southern  States.  They  comprise  several  local  sub 
divisions,  the  'crackers,'  the  *  sand-hillers,'  the 
'  clay-eaters/  and  many  more.  The  class  is  not 
peculiar  to  any  one  locality,  but  is  the  invariable 
outgrowth  of  negro  slavery  wherever  it  has  raised 
its  head  in  modern  times.  It  may  be  seen  in  the 
new  State  of  Texas,  as  well  as  in  the  old  settled 
districts  of  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia ; 
in  the  West  India  Islands  no  less  than  on  the 
Continent."  1 

As  the  slave  system  of  the  Roman  Republic 
created  vast  landed  estates  in  Italy,  and  drove 
the  free  laborers  to  the  cities,  where,  fed  upon 
public  largesses,  voted  by  ambitious  dema 
gogues,  they  made  a  despotic  empire  the  alter 
native  of  anarchy,  so  the  slave  system  of  the 
South  sapped  the  vitality  of  free  government  by 

1  The  Slave  Power,  J.  E.  Cairnes,  pp.  54,  55.  New  York,  1861. 
A  remarkable  book,  now  out  of  print.  Reviewed  by  John 
Stuart  Mill,  Diss.  and  Diss.,  vol.  iii.  p.  264. 


26  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

making  homeless  outcasts  of  American  citizens, 
and  by  creating  a  plutocracy. 

•  Of  the  moral  aspect  of  slavery  it  is  unneces 
sary  to  speak  at  length.  A  system  which  gave 
repute  to  slave  breeding  it  is  not  difficult  to 
characterize.  Even  the  church  was  summoned 
to  the  defense  of  an  institution  which  violated 
those  great  primary  laws  that  we  justly  hold 
divine,  —  the  right  of  human  freedom  and  the 
sanctity  of  wifehood.  Slavery  tore  families 
asunder  at  the  auction  block,  and  sold  the  mem 
bers  to  a  living  death.  It  made  marriage  vows 
as  false  as  dicers'  oaths,  and  sweet  religion  a 
rhapsody  of  wprds.  Fortified  in  selfish  greed, 
it  enlisted  to  its  support  the  lowest  instincts 
of  man,  and  transfigured  with  hate  the  face  of 
mercy.  It  corrupted  the  master,  the  slave,  and 
the  circumjacent  community. 

IV. 

So  much  for  the  tendencies  of  the  slave  sys 
tem.  Turning  now  to  something  more  tangible, 
to  those  pages  of  history  which  record  the  su 
premacy  of  the  slave  power,  we  shall  find  our 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  2f 

deduction  verified  by  an  ample  induction.  With 
the  purchase  of  Florida,  the  slave  interest,  just 
then  crystallizing  into  that  aggressive,  unscrupu 
lous,  and  despotic  oligarchy,  the  slave  power,  en 
tered  upon  its  career  of  stupendous  conquest, 
which  was  so  nearly  to  end  in  the  creation  of  a 
gigantic  tropical  slave  empire.  The  attempts, 
unsuccessful  and  otherwise,  made  by  J:he  slave 
holders  to  acquire  Florida,  Texas,  California, 
Mexico,  Cuba,  and  Central  America  are  but  the 
successive  steps  of  an  evolution  proceeding 
along  the  lines  of  economic  law.  The  end  to  be 
attained,  however  romantic  and  daring  it  may 
seem  to  be  to  us,  was  entirely  practical,  and  only 
a  frightful  civil  war  served  to  defeat  it.  South 
ward  the  course  of  empire  held  its  way. 

From  the  time  of  Cortes  the  country  encom 
passing  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean 
had  dazzled  the  imagination  of  adventurers,  and 
had  tempted  many  of  them  to  their  death.  The 
mysteries  of  its  shores  were  celebrated  by  the 
wonder  loving.  There  swooned  the  air,  heavy 
with  fragrance  ;  the  embracing  skies  were  liquid 
depths  of  azure.  Nature  was  rich  in  color,  and 
was  adorned  with  precious  gems,  which  awaken 


28  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

in  tremulous  beauty  to  the  kiss  of  the  light. 
In  the  forest  aisles  the  music  of  birds  mingled 
with  the  sweet  chimings  of  the  waters  of  the 
fountain  of  eternal  youth,  and  near  by  lay  hid 
den  the  golden  city,  the  very  Eldorado  of  song 
and  story.  It  was  dreamland.  After  the  colo 
nies  had  achieved  independence,  this  region  at 
tracted  the  attention  of  statesmen.  Hamilton, 
who  had  his  eye  upon  Florida,  encouraged  Mi 
randa  in  his  filibustering  expeditions  against  the 
Spanish-American  possessions,  Jefferson  bought 
Louisiana,  and  Burr  undertook  his  futile  venture 
against  Mexico. 

It  has  been  said  that  there  were  utilitarian 
reasons  entirely  apart  from  the  interests  of  sla 
very  which  demanded  the  cession  of  Florida. 
This  is  true  of  the  taking  of  West  Florida.  But 
in  the  acquisition  of  the  peninsula  slavery  was 
an  efficient  agent.  Of  the  resources  of  East 
Florida,  next  to  nothing  was  known.  Generally, 
that  province  was  regarded  as  a  huge  wilder 
ness  and  swamp,  and  was  chiefly  desirable  be 
cause  it  afforded  a  refuge  for  fugitive  slaves 
beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States. 
The  history  of  the  acquisition  is  long  and  scan- 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  29 

dalous,  and  need  not  be  told  here.  It  is  a  story 
of  desultory  warfare,  ofttimes  merciless,  against 
whomsoever  should  harbor  fugitive  slaves,  or 
should  otherwise  harass  the  Georgian  frontier, 
be  the  offenders  Creeks,  Seminoles,  or  Span 
iards.  It  involved  gross  treachery,  murder, 
and  wanton  invasion  of  foreign  soil.  Five  times 
in  seven  years  was  Florida  invaded  :  once  during 
the  war  of  1812,  by  General  Jackson,  and  twice 
during  the  same  period  by  Georgia's  lawless  ex 
peditions.  To  Georgia,  a  State  which  had  been 
largely  instrumental  in  forcing  the  three  fifths 
provision  upon  the  Constitutional  Convention, 
in  securing  a  twenty  years'  lease  of  legal  life 
to  the  slave  trade,  and  in  debasing  the  first  ex 
ercise  of  the  national  treaty-making  power  to 
the  return  of  her  fugitive  slaves,  belongs  the 
invidious  distinction  of  first  harnessing  the  fili 
busters  to  the  slave  car.  After  the  war  of  1812, 
the  United  States  disavowed  Georgia's  arbitrary 
invasions,  and  Florida  was  reluctantly  aban 
doned.  Temporarily,  however.  A  fort  on  the 
Appalachicola  River, — sixty  miles  beyond  the 
boundary  of  the  United  States,  —  which  had 
been  seized  as  a  defensive  post  by  the  Florida 


3O  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

exiles,  appeared  to  the  Georgian  mind  to  be 
a  constant  menace  to  the  repose  of  a  slave  so 
ciety,  and -General  Jackson  ordered  it  to  be  de 
stroyed.  A  red-hot  shot  from  a  United  States 
gunboat  exploded  the  magazine  of  the  fort, 
thereby  instantly  killing  two  hundred  and  sev 
enty  of  the  occupants  (two  thirds  of  whom  were 
women  and  children),  and  wounding  all  but  three 
of  the  rest.  Those  negroes  who  recovered  from 
their  wounds  were  restored  to  Georgian  claim 
ants,  being  given  up  in  some  instances,  we  are 
told,  "  to  the  descendants  of  those  who  claimed 
to  have  owned  their  ancestors  generations  be 
fore."  Twenty  years  later,  Congress  suitably 
rewarded  this  gallant  deed  with  an  appropria 
tion. 

The  fifth  and  last  invasion  of  Florida  was 
made  by  Jackson  under  cover  of  the  first  Semi- 
nole  war,  which  was  a  heritage  of  the  slaughter 
at  "  Negro  Fort."  Jackson  promised  the  Presi 
dent  that  he  would  conquer  Florida  within  sixty 
days,  and  his  was  no  idle  word.  An  observance 
of  the  niceties  of  international  law,  as  well  as 
of  the  rules  of  civilized  warfare,  did  not  distin 
guish  this  raid  of  conquest  from  other  under- 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  3  I 

takings  of  a  similar  character.  The  aid  of  di 
plomacy  had  been  invoked  long  before,  and 
Spain,  powerless  to  protect  her  citizens  and 
territory  from  outrage,  now  agreed  to  sell  Flor 
ida.  Of  one  condition,  however,  she  was  tena 
cious  to  the  end,  —  the  United  States  must  aban 
don  all  claims  to  Texas.  As  the  slaveholders 
were  eager,  Texas  was  signed  away.  It  would 
doubtless  be  recovered  in  good  time  when  it  was 
needed.  Thus,  in  short,  were  seventy-nine  thou 
sand  square  miles  of  territory  gained  for  slavery. 
If  the  purpose  of  this  purchase  was  to  quiet  the 
border,  the  treaty  signally  failed.  The  negroes 
continued  to  seek  asylum  among  the  Seminoles, 
and  the, government  decreed  the  banishment  of 
that  tribe  to  the  West,  together  with  the  sub 
jection  of  it  to  the  Creek  Indians,  who  claimed 
the  Seminole  exiles  as  their  slaves. 

Out  of  this  unfortunate  order  grew  that  bloody, 
protracted,  and  expensive  man-hunt  known  as 
the  second  Seminole  war.  Among  the  collateral 
causes  of  this  war  may  be  mentioned  the  appli 
cation  of  the  rule,  parttis  sequitur  ventrem,  to  the 
children  of  those  Indians  who  had  married  slave 
women.  Under  cover  of  this  law,  the  half-breed 


32  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

wife  of  Osceola,  a  Seminole  chief,  was  seized 
while  she  was  visiting  Fort  King.  Her  husband 
took  a  stealthy  and  terrible  revenge ;  and  this 
was  the  beginning  of  general  hostilities.  Af 
terwards  Osceola  himself  was  taken  by  treach 
ery,  and  died  in  prison.  But  indeed  the  whole 
conflict  was  marked  with  great  perfidy  and 
cruelty.  For  the  purpose  of  tracking  the 
slave  exiles,  the  legislature  of  Florida  authorized 
the  purchase  of  Cuban  bloodhounds,  and,  as  an 
incentive  to  his  soldiers,  General  Jesup  offered 
captive  negroes  as  prizes  of  war.  The  struggle 
lasted  six  years,  and  resulted  in  reclaiming  to 
slavery  five  hundred  fugitives,  at  a  cost  to  the 
United  States  of  $80,000  for  each  person  reen- 
slaved. 

V. 

The  enterprise  to  which  the  slaveholders 
next  directed  their  energies  was  nothing  less 
than  the  stealing  of  an  empire.  In  the  lower 
house  of  Congress  the  slave  States  were  in  a 
hopeless  minority,  although  their  representation 
there  was  based  partly  upon  an  enumeration  of 
slaves.  To  preserve  an  equality  in  the  Senate, 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  33 

where  the  representation  was  arbitrary,  was 
therefore  indispensable.  A  slave  State  must  be 
found  as  a  complement  to  every  new  free  State 
admitted.  But  the  slave  power  could  look  only 
to  the  Southwest  for  new  States,  and  there  an 
event  had  occurred  which  threatened  to  close  to 
them  forever  this  highway  to  future  dominion. 

In  1821,  revolution  had  swept  away  the  au 
thority  of  Spain  in  North  America,  and  Texas- 
Coahuila  became  a  member  of  the  new  State 
of  Mexico,  under  a  constitution  which  made 
freedom  a  birthright,  and  which  forbade  the 
importation  of  slaves.  In  1829,  the  dictator  of 
Mexico,  Guerrero,  freed  all  persons  held  in 
slavery  within  his  dominions,  and  this  decree 
was  reaffirmed  afterwards  in. the  constitutions 
of  the  Mexican  republic.  The  American  slave 
power  hastened  to  meet  the  impending  danger. 
Texas  must  be  recovered  at  all  hazards,  and 
speedily.  The  refusal  of  the  Mexican  govern 
ment  to  entertain  any  proposition  of  purchase 
cut  off  the  only  means  of  lawful  acquisition, 
and  thereupon  Texas  became  the  subject  of  a 
far-reaching  intrigue.  The  Southwest  had  never 
been  reconciled  to  the  cession  of  Texas,  and  in- 


34  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

dividuals  anticipated,  in  a  measure,  the  after-de 
signs  of  the  slave  power  by  undertaking  to  colo 
nize  this  territory  for  their  own  gain  and  profit. 
Only  a  few  months  subsequent  to  the  making  of 
the  Florida  treaty,  Long,  at  the  head  of  a  band 
of  Mississippi  filibusters,  entered  Texas,  and  pro 
claimed  its  independence.  There  being  as  yet 
no  settlers  from  the  United  States  in  Texas,  the 
project  failed.  Later,  adventurers  from  Ten 
nessee,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana  went  to  Texas 
under  the  guise  of  persecuted  Roman  Catholics, 
and  obtained  grants  of  land  from  Mexico,  which 
was  a  Catholic  state.  These  pious  gentlemen 
offered  land  premiums  for  the  importation  of 
slaves,  and  opened  up  a  lucrative  trade  which 
extended  even  to  .Africa.  Swindling  land  com 
panies  were  organized,  and  worthless  stock  and 
scrip,  purporting  to  be  preparatory  titles  to  land, 
were  floated  in  large  quantities.  By  means  such 
as  these,  many  Northern  people  became  finan 
cially  interested  in  the  annexation  of  the  new 
State.  Slaves  were  introduced  into  Texas  from 
the  United  States  in  open  defiance  of  law,  or 
under  the  technical  description  of  "  apprentices 
for  ninety-nine  years,"  and  Mexican  laws  limit- 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  35 

ing  apprenticeship  to  ten  years,  and  totally  pro 
hibiting  immigration  from  the  United  States, 
became  dead  letters  when  the  troops  sent  to 
enforce  them  were  recalled  to  the  capital.  The 
time  was  now  ripe  actively  to  assist  emigration 
to  Texas,  and  the  slave  power  set  rolling  thither 
"  the  tide  of  vagrant  blackguardism."  "  There 
was  probably  never  seen  a  more  ferocious  com 
pany  of  ruffians  than  Texas  contains  at  this  mo 
ment,"  wrote  Harriet  Martineau  in  1835.  Arms 
and  stores  were  sent  to  them  as  sinews  for  the 
coming  war.  General  Sam  Houston,  an  inti 
mate  friend  of  President  Jackson,  who  himself 
had  vainly  endeavored  to  purchase  Texas,  went 
to  that  province  with  the  avowed  intention  of 
wresting  it  from  Mexico.  With  the  details  of 
the  contest  which  followed  we  are  not  concerned. 
The  complete  success  achieved  by  Houston  is 
a  matter  of  history.  It  is  of  more  moment  to 
observe  that  slavery  was  made  the  corner-stone 
of  the  new  Texan  republic,  and  that  the  Consti 
tution  of  that  State  denied  the  power  of  eman 
cipation  to  its  Congress,  or  to  any  slaveholder, 
unless  he  had  the  consent  of  Congress.  This 
instrument  was  adopted  in  March,  1836,  and 


36  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

the  recognition  of  Texas  by  the  United  States 
followed  promptly  at  the  next  session  of  Con 
gress.  Texas  being  independent,  its  annexa 
tion  to  the  American  Union  was  a  foregone 
conclusion.  England,  a  heavy  creditor  to  the 
new  State,  might  foreclose  upon  the  govern 
ment  itself,  and  abolish  slavery,  thus  making 
Houston's  war  nugatory.  And  there  were 
other  contingencies.  The  slave  power  of  the 
United  States  endeavored  during  ten  years  to 
obtain  the  two  thirds  vote  in  the  Senate  neces 
sary  to  the  ratification  of  an  annexation  treaty, 
and  finally,  despairing  of  it,  it  annexed  Texas 
by  joint  resolution.  As  the  independence  of 
Texas  had  not  yet  been  conceded  by  Mexico, 
annexation  was  a  casus  belli.  Even  this  offense 
our  weaker  neighbor  seemed  willing  to  con 
done,  and  diplomacy  might  have  averted  bloody 
strife ;  but  the  slaveholders  would  not  have  it 
so.  Their  appetite  had  grown  by  what  it  fed 
upon,  and  they  demanded  more  land.  The  Rio 
Grande,  and  not  the  Nueces  River,  said  they, 
was  the  western  boundary  of  Texas,  and  thus 
was  the  United  States  embarked  upon  another 
unholy  war  of  conquest.  This  struggle,  like 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  37 

the  war  of  1812,  was  fomented  by  the  South 
under  cover  of  "  manifest  destiny."  To  Young- 
Democracy,  the  second  conflict  with  Great 
Britain  meant  not  only  protection,  but  vindica 
tion.  They  had  in  view  the  conquest  of  Can 
ada.  Nay,  even  more.  John  Randolph,  who 
satirized  the  dream  of  the  visionaries,  "  seemed 
to  see  the  capital  in  motion  towards  the  falls  of 
the  Ohio,  after  a  short  sojourn  taking  its  flight 
to  the  Mississippi,  and  finally  alighting  at  Darien, 
which  .  .  .  will  be  a  most  eligible  seat  of  gov 
ernment  for  the  new  republic  (or  empire)  of  the 
two  Americas."  Truth  is  stranger  than  fiction, 
and  these  words  read  like  a  shrill  prophecy. 
Events  followed  fast  in  the  direction  pointed 
out  by  the  cynic  of  Roanoke.  The  cession  of 
New  Mexico  and  California  to  the  United  States 
at  the  treaty  of  Guadaloupe  Hidalgo  was  no 
afterthought.  The  ambition  of  the  slaveholders 
was  not  confined  to  the  territory  between  the 
Rio  Grande  and  the  Nueces.  Before  the  be 
ginning  of  hostilities,  Slidell  had  been  sent  to 
Mexico  to  offer  $25,000,000  for  New  Mexico 
and  California,  provinces  which  afterward  cost 
us  $95,000,000,  not  to  mention  30,000  lives. 


38  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 


VI. 

The  underlying  purpose  of  the  Mexican  war 
was  brought  to  view  as  early  as  1842,  when 
Henry  A.  Wise  (whose  intrigues  afterwards 
made  Calhoun  Secretary  of  State)  "  babbled  the 
whole  project  "  (to  use  the  words  of  John 
Quincy  Adams)  in  a  speech  delivered  in  the 
House  of  Representatives:  — 

"  Let  her  [Texas]  once  raise  the  flag  of  foreign 
conquest,  let  her  once  proclaim  a  crusade  against  the 
rich  States  south  of  her  .  .  .  [and]  volunteers  from  all 
the  States  in  the  great  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  be 
fore  whom  no  Mexican  troops  could  stand  an  hour, 
would  plant  the  lone  star  of  the  Texas  banner  upon 
the  Mexican  capital.  They  would  drive  Santa  Anna 
to  the  south,  and  the  boundless  wealth  of  captured 
towns  and  rifled  churches,  and  a  lazy,  vicious,  and 
luxurious  priesthood  would  soon  enable  Texas  to 
pay  her  soldiers  and  redeem  her  state  debt,  and  push 
her  victorious  arms  to  the  very  shores  of  the  Pacific. 
And  would  not  all  this  extend  slavery  ?  Yes',  slavery 
should  pour  itself  abroad  without  restraint,  and  find 
no  limit  but  the  Southern  Ocean." 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  39 

This  impetuous  utterance  affords  a  picture  of 
what  probably  would  have  happened  had  the 
slave  power  been  unbridled.  As  it  was,  the 
slave  party  went  far.  At  the  conclusion  of  the 
Mexican  war,  wholesale  annexation  was  openly 
advocated  by  Democratic  meetings,  and  by  lead 
ing  journals  throughout  the  United  States,  and 
President  Polk  gave  this  feeling  articulate  ex 
pression,  by  declaring  in  his  annual  message  to 
Congress  :  — 

"  If,  after  affording  this  encouragement  and  pro 
tection,  and  after  all  the  persevering  and  sincere 
efforts  we  have  made  from  the  moment  Mexico  com 
menced  the  war  [sic],  and  prior  to  that  time,  to  ad 
just  our  differences  with  her,  we  shall  ultimately  fail, 
then  we  shall  have  exhausted  all  honorable  means 
in  pursuit  of  peace,  and  must  continue  to  occupy 
her  country  with  our  troops,  taking  the  full  measure 
of  indemnity  into  our  own  hands,  and  must  enforce 
the  terms  which  our  honor  demands." 

But  it  was  not  to  be.  Although  the  Northern 
people  did  not  seriously  oppose  the  purchase  of 
sparsely  populated  States,  such  as  California 
and  New  Mexico,  they  felt  that  the  government 
of  alien  races  was  repugnant  to  republican  insti- 


40  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

tutions,  colonization  and  Americanization  being 
a  condition  precedent.  Besides,  there  were  other 
cogent  objections.  The  annexation  of  Mexico 
meant  prolonged  military  occupation,  with  a 
consequent  increase  of  taxes,  and  the  Northern 
people  were  already  weary  of  a  war  to  which 
they  had  given  only  a  half-hearted  support.  The 
invasion  of  Mexico  was  a  wanton  and  lustful 
act,  and  the  successes  of  our  arms  never  recon 
ciled  them  to  it.  They  had  been  fooled  in  re 
spect  to  this  thing  from  the  beginning.  The 
promised  adjustment  of  the  Oregon  boundary 
—  the  slaveholders'  sop  to  the  North  —  was 
a  trick.  "  54°  40'  or  fight "  had  had  a  craven 
ending. 

But  it  was  the  impolitic  efforts  of  the  slave 
power  to  secure  the  fruits  of  their  victory  over 
Mexico  that  exhausted  the  patience  of  the  North. 
By  the  treaty  of  Guadaloupe  Hidalgo,  Mexico 
ceded  to  the  United  States  an  area  nearly  equal 
to  that  of  the  thirteen  original  States.  In  this 
territory  slavery  had  been  abolished  by  Mexico, 
and,  as  the  freesoilers  contended,  it  could  be 
restored  only  by  act  of  positive  law.  Although 
the  Northern  people  were  not  disposed  to  inter- 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  41 

fere  with  slavery  in  the  accepted  slave  States, 
conceding  it  to  be  a  vested  customary  right 
there,  recognized  by  the  organic  law,  and  pro 
tected  by  the  lex  loci,  they  hated  the  system 
none  the  less,  and  determined  that  the  new  ter 
ritories  acquired  from  Mexico  should  never  be 
polluted  by  traffic  in  human  flesh.  The  slave 
power  determined  otherwise.  What  was  the 
Mexican  war  for  ?  If  any  doubt  existed,  the 
letter  addressed  by  Mr.  Trist  to  his  chief,  Secre 
tary  Buchanan,  could  officially  dispel  it.  Mr. 
Trist  had  been  sent  to  Mexico  during  the  prog 
ress  of  the  Mexican  war,  to  negotiate  a  peace 
based  upon  the  cession  of  New  Mexico,  the  two 
Californias,  and  a  right  of  way  through  the 
Isthmus  of  Tehuantepec,  and  he  wrote  as  fol 
lows  :  — 

"  I  concluded  by  assuring  them  (the  Mexican 
Commissioners)  that  if  it  were  in  their  power  to 
offer  me  the  whole  territory  described  in  our  project, 
increased  tenfold  in  value,  and,  in  addition  to  that, 
covered  a  foot  thick  all  over  with  pure  gold,  upon 
the  single  condition  that  slavery  should  be  excluded 
therefrom,  I  could  not  entertain  the  offer  for  a  mo 
ment,  nor  think  even  of  communicating  it  to  Wash- 


42  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

Small  wonder,  then,  that  the  Wilmot  Proviso 
and  kindred  propositions  should  make  the  slave 
holders  gasp.  All  that  bloodshed  for  nothing  ! 
Here  was  the  beginning  of  the  end.  The 
slaveholders  were  filled  with  bitterness.  A 
Democratic  war  had  produced  only  Whig  gen 
erals,  one  of  whom,  elected  to  the  Presidency, 
had  inflicted  a  parricidal  stab  by  urging  the 
admission  of  California  as  a  free  State.  The 
gigantic  stretch  of  country  ceded  by  the  treaty 
of  Guadaloupe  Hidalgo  promised  to  be  a  barren 
acquisition.  The  Union  stood  upon  the  brink 
of  dissolution.  At  last  the  chasm  was  bridged 
by  a  compromise.  On  the  one  hand,  California 
was  admitted  as  a  free  State,  —  an  unavoid 
able  concession,  inasmuch  as  most  of  the  gold 
hunters  were  from  the  North.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  legislatures  of  the  Territories  of  New 
Mexico  and  Utah  were  forbidden  to  enact  any 
laws  relating  to  slavery,  and  new  States  were 
to  be  admitted  to  the  Union  with  or  without 
slavery,  as  their  respective  constitutions  should 
provide.  After  this  the  running  was*  easy.  The 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  logically 
followed  ;  and  all  too  quickly.  The  Northern 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  43 

people  received  this  overt  breach  of  faith  as 
a  threat  against  the  perpetuity  of  free  govern 
ment  which  no  sophistry  could  explain  or  con 
done.  It  was  a  sure  presage  of  the  awful 
storm.  Thomas  H.  Benton,  who,  in  current 
political  matters  was  the  best-informed  man  of 
his  time,  treats  significantly  of  this  crisis  :  — 

"  Up  to  Mr.  Pierce's  administration  the  plan  had 
been  defensive ;  that  is  to  say,  to  make  the  seces 
sion  of  the  South  a  means  of  self-defense  against 
the  abolition  encroachments,  aggressions,  and  cru-  \ 
sades  of  the  North.  In  the  time  of  Mr.  Pierce  the 
plan  became  offensive ;  that  is  to  say,  to  commence  , 
the  expansion  of  slavery  and  the  organization  of 
territory  to  spread  it  over,  so  as  to  overpower  the 
North  with  new  slave  States  and  drive  them  out  of 
the  Union.  In  this  change  of  tactics  originated  the 
abrogation  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  ;  the  attempt 
to  purchase  one  half  of  Mexico,  and  the  actual 
purchase  of  a  large  part ;  the  design  to  take  Cuba ; 
the  encouragement  to  Kinney  and  Walker  in  Cen 
tral  America  ;  the  quarrels  with  Great  Britain  for 
outlandish  coasts  and  islands  ;  the  designs  upon  the 
Tehuantepec,  the  Nicaragua,  the  Panama,  and  the 
Darien  route ;  and  the  scheme  to  get  a  foothold  in 
the  island  of  San  Domingo." 


44  THE   SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

Herein  we  observe  not  so  much  a  change  of 
policy  as  an  evolution  thereof.  Mr.  Benton  out 
lines  with  distinctness  the  future  slave  empire, 
towards  which  the  South,  in  obedience  to  eco 
nomic,  social,  and  political  conditions,  had  been 
tending  for  a  half  century.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
follow  specifically  his  catalogue  of  events.  It  is 
sufficient  to  give  a  few  details  of  the  "  grand 
movement  "  to  which  the  slaveholders  boastingly 
referred.  Guadaloupe  Hidalgo  had  not  satisfied 
them  ;  they  must  have  more  land  !  In  a  speech 
delivered  in  Congress  upon  the  eve  of  the  pas 
sage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  Mr.  Benton 
threw  light  into  dark  places  when  he  said  :  — 

"  What  is  a  state  secret  in  the  city  of  Washington 
is  street  talk  in  the  city  of  Montezuma.  First.  The 
mission  of  Mr.  Gadsden  to  $anta  Anna.  It  must 
have  been  conceived  about  the  time  that  this  bill 
was  ;  and,  according  to  transpiring  accounts,  must 
have  been  a  grand  movement  in  itself,  —  $50,000,- 
ooo  for  as  much  Mexican  territory  on  our  Southern 
border  as  would  make  five  or  six  States  of  the  first 
class.  The  area  of  the  acquisition,  as  I  understand 
it,  was  to  extend  from  sea  to  sea,  on  a  line  that  would 
give  us  Santander,  Monterey,  Saltillo,  Parras,  So- 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  45 

noro,  and  all  lower  California.  This  was  certainly  a 
large  movement,  both  in  point  of  money  and  of  ter 
ritory,  and  also  large  in  political  consequence  ;  and 
clearly  furnishing  a  theatre  for  the  doctrine  of  non 
intervention,  if  there  should  be  any  design  to  convert 
the  newly-acquired  territory  from  free  soil,  that  it  is, 
into  slave  soil,  that  it  might  be  desired  to  be.  Here, 
then,  I  believe  I  have  found  one  branch  of  the  grand 
movement ;  and  although  Mr.  Gadsden  returned 
from  his  mission  with  a  small  slice  only  of  the  de 
sired  territory,  yet  he  has  returned  to  his  post,  and 
may  have  better  luck  on  a  second  trial,  —  if  Santa 
Anna  escapes  from  the  speckled  Indians  (Los  Indies 
Pintos)  who  have  him  at  bay  in  the  Sierra.  I  say 
nothing  on  the  merits  of  this  new  acquisition,  only 
that  it  is  an  old  acquaintance  with  me,  having  first 
heard  of  it  in  November,  1846,  and  afterwards  in 
March,  1848,  at  which  latter  time  it  was  proposed  in 
the  Senate  (by  Mr.  Davis,  of  Mississippi)  on  the  rat 
ification  of  Guadaloupe  Hidalgo  treaty ;  and  rejected 
by  the  Senate.  I  voted  against  the  Santander  and 
Monterey  line  then ;  and  have  not  seen  cause  to 
change  my  opinion.  [Here  Mr.  Benton  read  the 
article  proposed  by  Mr.  Davis  for  the  new  line.] 
Secondly.  The  mission  of  Mr.  Soule  to  Madrid,  — 
also  a  grand  movement  in  itself,  if  reports  be  true, — 
two  hundred  and  fifty  millions  for  Cuba,  and  a 


46  THE  SOUTHERN  "EMPIRE. 

rumpus  is  kicked  up  if  the  island  is  not  got.  .  .  .  Mr. 
Chairman :  I  discuss  nothing  in  relation  to  those 
rumored  acquisitions  of  the  island  of  Cuba  and  a 
broad  side  of  Mexico ;  I  only  call  attention  to  them 
as  probable  indexes  to  the  grand  movement  of  which 
the  member  from  Georgia  gave  us  the  revelation, 
and  which  no  one  has  denied." 

Within  eight  years  (1845-53)  the  slaveholders 
had  added  nearly  1,000,000  square  miles  of  ter 
ritory  to  the  United  States.  When  the  disposi 
tion  of  the  soil  then  acquired  by  them  seemed 
likely  to  be  unsatisfactory,  they  turned,  natu 
rally,  to  Cuba,  where  the  status  of  slavery  was 
beyond  dispute.  Buchanan  endeavored,  during 
a  decade,  to  gain  this  island  for  the  slave  power. 
As  Secretary  of  State  under  Polk,  he  offered 
one  hundred  millions  of  dollars  for  it,  a  proposi 
tion  which  met  with  short  shrift.  In  1854,  as 
Minister  to  England,  he  signed  the  Ostend 
Manifesto,  a  collaboration  which  proclaimed  to 
an  astonished  world  the  purpose  of  the  United 
States  to  take  Cuba  vi  et  armis,  if  methods  less 
arbitrary  should  not  avail.  In  1858,  as  Presi 
dent,  he  urged  Congress  to  purchase  the  island, 
and  Slidell  introduced  a  bill  appropriating  thirty 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  47 

millions  of  dollars  as  a  payment  upon  account ; 
but  this  measure  was  never  pressed  to  a  vote. 
In  1860,  both  the  Charleston  and  the  Balti 
more  conventions  indorsed  the  Cuban  project. 

Mr.  Buchanan,  in  his  zeal,  was  merely  repre 
sentative  of  the  temper  of  the  South.  The 
convention  which  nominated  him  for  President, 
in  1856,  adopted  as  its  own  the  doctrine  of 
imperial  conquest,  by  expressing  sympathy  with 
the  efforts  which  were  being  "made  by  the 
people  of  Central  America  "  to  "  regenerate  the 
isthmus,"  and  by  resolving  that  it  would  expect 
that  every  proper  exertion  would  be  put  forth  to 
"insure  our  ascendency  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico." 

In  the  light  of  this  declaration,  it  is  not  strange 
that  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  as  an  aspirant  for 
the  Democratic  nomination  for  the  presidency, 
should  deem  it  necessary  to  commit  himself 
unreservedly  to  the  policy  of  annexation.  In 
New  Orleans  (1858)  he  said :  "It  is  our  destiny 
to  have  Cuba,  and  it  is  folly  to  debate  the  ques 
tion.  .  .  .  Its  acquisition  is  a  matter  of  time 
only.  .  .  .  The  same  is  true  of  Central  America 
and  Mexico.  It  will  not  do  to  say  we  have  ter 
ritory  enough." 


48  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

Meantime,  those  pioneers  of  Southern  empire, 
the  filibusters,  were  not  idle.  Lopez  twice  in 
vaded  Cuba,  and  died  in  an  attempt  to  revolu 
tionize  it.  The  Order  of  the  Lone  Star,  28,000 
strong,  under  the  leadership  of  Governor  Quit- 
man,  of  Mississippi,  had  been  enlisted  for  the 
same  purpose.  Expeditions  such  as  these  were 
the  last  convulsive  efforts  made  by  the  slave 
power  to  extend  its  dominions.  Walker  in 
vaded  Central  America,  and  reestablished  slavery 
in  Nicaragua,  but  he  could  not  maintain  him 
self  for  long.  It  is  said  that  he  was  aided  in  his 
conspiracy  by  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle. 
Several  years  later  (1860)  this  organization  was 
intent  upon  the  seizure  of  Guanajuato,  the 
richest  mining  province  of  Mexico,  if  not  of  the 
world,  when  its  plans  were  exposed  by  George 
D.  Prentice,  editor  of  the  "  Louisville  Journal." 
The  ritual  of  the  society  is  typical,  and  it  will  be 
instructive  to  set  out  a  part  of  it,  including  the 
obligation  of  the  candidate  for  the  first  degree. 

"  Under  the  laws  of  2  (Mexico)  every  emigrant 
receives  from  the  state  authorities  a  grant  of  640 
acres  of  land.  Under  a  treaty  closed  with  3  (Manuel 
Doblado,  Governor  of  Guanajuato),  on  the  nth  of 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  49 

February,  1860,  we  are  invited  to  colonize  in  2 
(Mexico),  to  enable  the  best  people  there  to  estab 
lish  a  permanent  government.  We  agree  to  intro 
duce  a  force  of  16,000  men,  armed,  equipped,  and 
provided,  and  to  take  the  field  under  the  command 
of  3  (Doblado),  who  agrees  to  furnish  an  equal 
number  of  men  to  be  officered  by  K.  G.  C.'s.  To 
cover  the  original  expenses  of  arming  our  forces, 
there  is  mortgaged  to  our  Trustees  the  right  to 
collect  one  half  the  annual  revenues  of  4  (Guana 
juato),  until  we  are  paid  the  sum  of  $840,000.  As  a 
bonus  there  is  also  ceded  to  us  355,000  acres  of 
land.  The  pay  of  the  army  is  the  same  as  the  regu 
lar  army  of  2  (Mexico),  which  is  about  one  eighth 
that  of  the  United  States.  To  secure  this  there  is 
mortgaged  to  us  all  the  public  property  of  4  (Guana 
juato)  amounting  in  taxable  value  to  $23,000,000. 
3  (Doblado)  is  now  there  making  arrangements  for 
our  reception." 

The  initiate  says  that  he  will  do  all  that  he 
can,  as  an  honorable  man,  to  make  "58  (a  slave 
State)  of  2  (Mexico)."  As  such  he  will  "  urge  its 
83  (annexation)  to  72  (United  States)  ;  otherwise 
he  will  oppose  it  with  equal  zeal."  He  will "  sus 
tain  the  effort  to  reduce  the  88  (Peon  system)  to 
89  (perpetual  slavery)."  "  Until  the  whole  civil, 


50  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

political,  financial,  and  religious  reconstruction 
of  2  (Mexico)  has  been  completed,  he  will  rec 
ognize  90  (limited  monarchy)  as  the  best  form 
of  63  (government)  for  the  purpose  in  view,  since 
it  can  be  made  strong  and  effective."  He  fur 
ther  pledges  himself  to  support  no  leader  of  the 
organization  who  will  not  swear  "  to  extend  91 
(slavery)  over  the  whole  92  (Central  America)  if 
in  his  power.  He  shall  try  to  acquire  93  (Cuba) 
and  control  94  (the  Gulf  of  Mexico)." 

The  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  were  to 
concentrate  in  "  20  (Encinal  County,  Texas)  by 
September  15,  1860  (a  misprint,  we  presume, 
for  61. — Ed.  of  Journal),  and  will  cross  5  (Rio 
Grande)  by  the  first  day  of  6  (October)." 

The  "  Louisville  Journal  "  declared  that  nearly 
three  thousand  persons  had  been  admitted  into 
the  order1  in  Louisville,  a  majority  of  them  be 
ing  non-residents. 

1  The  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  were  variously  styled, 
during  a  checkered  career,  The  Circle,  The  Golden  Circle, 
Circle  of  Honor,  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  Knights  of  the 
Mighty  Host,  Order  of  American  Knights,  etc.,  etc.  The 
late  Senator  Morton  once  said  that  this  society  changed  its 
name  as  often  as  a  thief,  and  pretty  much  for  the  same  rea 
sons.  When  the  war  began,  it  crossed  the  Ohio  River,  and 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 


VII. 

But  filibustering  expeditions  were  poor  ex 
pedients,  unless  they  should  be  supported  by  a 
vigorous  and  consistent  policy  of  state  ;  and  this 
the  slaveholders  were  unable  to  guarantee  so 
long  as  they  were  subject  to  the  restraints  im 
posed  by  a  union  with  a  free  North.  Expan 
sion  —  more  land  and  more  slaves  —  was  the  life 
of  slavery ;  and  its  partisans  must  be  in  a  posi 
tion  to  map  out  and  to  carry  out  a  comprehen 
sive  scheme  of  conquest.  This  was  the  purpose 
of  secession,  which  could  have  no  other  suffi 
cient  object.  The  existing  slave  interests  were 
not  menaced,  and  needed  no  protection.  Gid- 
dings  tells  us  that,  despite  the  vast  amount  of 
muddy  assertion  to  the  contrary,  no  bill,  resolu 
tion,  or  other  measure  was  introduced  into  either 
house  of  Congress,  from  the  time  of  the  forma 
tion  of  the  Constitution  to  the  civil  war,  which 

found  lodgment  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  where,  after  a 
brief  and  inglorious  career,  it  died.  It  was  succeeded  by  the 
Sons  of  Liberty,  a  formidable  secret  organization,  whose  object 
was  the  establishment  of  a  Northwestern  Confederacy. 


52  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

looked  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  any  of  the 
States  where  it  existed.  The  Crittenden  com 
promise  beggared  the  South  of  all  apology  for 
seceding.  It  embodied  the  following  proposi 
tions,  to  wit :  Slavery  to  be  recognized  as  exist 
ing  in  all  the  territory  south  of  line  36°  30',  to 
be  perpetually  free  from  interference  by  Con 
gress,  and  to  be  protected  as  property  during  its 
continuance  by  all  the  departments  of  the  ter 
ritorial  government.  New  States  were  to  be 
admitted  to  the  Union  with  or  without  slavery, 
as  their  constitutions  should  provide, — the  pet 
doctrine  of  non-intervention.  Congress  was 
forbidden  to  abolish  slavery  in  places  under  its 
exclusive  jurisdiction  and  situated  within  slave- 
holding  States.  Officers  of  the  government 
might  bring  their  slaves  to  Washington  city,  and 
take  them  away.  The  transportation  of  slaves, 
whether  by  land,  river,  or  sea,  was  to  be  un 
hindered.  When  a  fugitive  slave  should  be  lost 
through  the  laches  of  an  officer,  or  through  the 
violence  of  a  mob,  the  United  States  would  pay 
the  value  of  the  slave  to  the  owner.  Although 
these  propositions  were  in  the  form  of  five  irre- 
pealable  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  they 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  53 

were  contemptuously  rejected  by  the  irreconcil 
able  Southern  leaders.  Secession  was  therefore 
not  a  defensive  act ;  it  was  an  aggression. 
Thaddeus  Stevens  (H.  R.,  January  29,  1861) 
plumbed  the  purpose  in  these  words  :  — 

"  The  secession  and  rebellion  of  the  South  have 
been  inculcated  as  a  doctrine  for  twenty  years  past 
among  slaveholding  communities.  At  one  time  the 
tariff  was  deemed  a  sufficient  cause ;  then  the  exclu 
sion  of  slavery  from  free  territories  ;  then  some  vio 
lation  of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  Now,  the  culminat 
ing  cause  is  the  election  of  a  President  who  does  not 
believe  in  the  benefits  of  slavery,  or  approve  of  that 
great  missionary  enterprise,  the  slave  trade.  The 
truth  is,  all  these  things  are  mere  pretenses.  The 
restless  spirits  of  the  South  desire  to  have  a  slave 
empire,  and  they  use  these  things  as  excuses.  Some 
of  them  desire  a  more  brilliant  and  stronger  govern 
ment  than  a  Republic.  Their  domestic  institutions 
and  the  social  inequality  of  their  free  people  nat 
urally  prepare  them  for  a  monarchy  surrounded  by 
a  lordly  nobility,  for  a  throne  founded  on  the  neck 
of  labor." 

A  war  contrived  for  such  a  purpose  could  be 
the  result  only  of  a  conspiracy,  although  this 


54  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

statement,  as  applied  to  the  Rebellion,  may  seem 
to  be  incredible,  when  the  magnitude  of  that 
struggle  is  considered.  But  it  should  not  be 
forgotten  that  the  slaveholders  were  working 
with  plastic  material.  The  Southern  people 
were  poor,  as  the  result  of  a  system  which  dis 
honored  labor.  They  were  confined  and  at 
tached  to  locality,  and  they  believed  in  states' 
rights.  There  was  lack  of  social,  mental,  and 
commercial  communication  ;  of  cities,  of  rail 
roads,  of  newspapers,  of  schools,  and  of  libra 
ries.  As  Emerson  said  of  slavery  in  the  West 
Indies,  "  Slavery  is  no  scholar,  no  improver.  It 
does  not  love  the  whistle  of  the  locomotive  ; 
it  does  not  love  the  newspaper,  the  mailbag, 
a  college,  a  book,  or  a  preacher  who  has  the 
absurd  whim  of  saying  what  he  thinks."  The 
principal  means  of  enlightenment  were  the  po 
litical  speeches  delivered  by  the  slaveholders, 
whose  influence  as  the  owners  of  land  and  la 
bor  was  practically  government ;  and  the  body 
of  the  Southern  people,  receiving  their  news 
and  ideas  at  second-hand,  came  to  reflect,  with 
the  faithfulness  of  a  mirror,  the  hopes  and  the 
prejudices  of  their  masters.  The  spirit  of  abo- 


THE  SOUTHERN* EMPIRE.  55 

litionism,  whenever  it  appeared,  was  exorcised 
by  burning,  hanging,  shooting,  or  outlawing  the 
person  bewitched.  As  Mr.  Cairnes  has  pointed 
out,  the  Southern  people  were  the  victims  of 
the  slave  system.  They  were  moulded  to  the 
invincible  will  of  an  intelligent,  wealthy,  uni 
fied,  and  desperate  minority.  From  the  begin 
ning  to  the  end  of  the  war,  they  were  the  sub 
jects  of  extraordinary  delusions,  being  practiced 
upon  with  all  the  arts  of  chicanery  known  to 
ambitious  and  reckless  politicians.  Had  they 
foreseen  any  one  of  the  fatal  consequences  of 
their  revolt  against  the  government,  —  the  four 
years  of  bloody  strife,  the  depletion  of  their 
resources,  the  sacrifice  of  their  personal  rights, 
and  the  establishment  of  a  military  despotism 
shortly  after  the  beginning  of  hostilities,  —  they 
could  not  have  been  tricked  into  secession  by 
arbitrary  and  unrepresentative  conventions,  nor 
deluded  into  following  the  phantom  of  state 
sovereignty. 

Promised  relief  from  the  "  tyrannical  usurpa 
tion  "  of  the  national  government,  they  were 
cajoled  into  selling  their  modicum  of  liberty ; 
assured  of  peaceful  separation,  they  were  de- 


56  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

frauded  into  the  most  sanguinary  conflict  of 
modern  times.  They  had  been  taught  that  the 
North  was  peopled  by  a  vulgar  race,  greedy  of 
gold,  and  destitute  of  honor  and  courage  ;  while 
for  the  abolitionist  was  reserved  a  distinct  place 
in  their  imaginations  as  the  typical  incarnation 
of  all  human  villanies  and  vices.  Him  they 
hated  ;  but  all  they  despised. 

Yes,  they  were  assured,  secession  would  be 
peaceable  ;  revolution,  holiday  -  making.  And 
this  confidence,  which  the  leaders  themselves 
partially  shared,  was  seemingly  justified  by  the 
aspect  of  affairs. 

Before  Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated  on  the 
4th  of  March,  1861,  secession  was  an  accom 
plished  fact  in  seven  of  the  Southern  States, 
and  the  government  had  not  raised  its  hand. 
Nay,  more,  the  President  of  the  United  States 
had  sent  a  message  to  Congress,  denying  the 
power  of  the  Federal  government  ".to  coerce 
a  State  into  submission,  which  is  attempting 
to  withdraw  or  has  actually  withdrawn  from 
the  Union."  War  had  been  levied  against 
the  United  States  by  the  seizure  of  national 
forts,  arsenals,  sub-treasuries,  custom  houses, 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  57 

and  other  property ;  a  United  States  vessel 
bearing  reinforcements  and  provisions  for  Fort 
Sumter  had  been  fired  upon  and  driven  out  of 
Charleston  harbor  ;  in  pursuance  of  an  address 
issued  by  thirty  Congressmen  to  their  constitu 
ents  from  the  capital  of  the  nation,  a  provisional 
government  had  been  organized  at  Montgomery, 
and  a  United  States  senator  had  resigned  his 
seat  to  take  the  executive  chair  thereof.  The 
treasury  had  been  bankrupted  ;  the  navy  had 
been  scattered  over  distant  waters  ;  and  arms 
and  munitions  of  war  in  immense  quantities  had 
been  removed  to  the  South,  where  they  had  con 
veniently  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  belliger 
ents.  Even  after  the  installation  of  the  new 
administration,  and  in  the  face  of  these  overt 
acts,  the  government  kindly  consented  to  notify 
South  Carolina  in  case  of  any  attempt  to  change 
the  military  status  at  Sumter. 

Was  the  South  so  very  wrong  after  all  ?  The 
world  looked  on,  and  marveled.  Through  some 
alchemy  of  conscience,  civil,  military,  and  naval 
officers  violated  their  trusts,  and  dishonored 
their  allegiance.  United  States  senators  and 
representatives  gravely  argued  a  nation  out  of 


58  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

existence,  lectured  the  passive  North  with  so 
lemnity  on  its  shortcomings,  in  florid  valedic 
tories,  expressive  more  of  grief  than  of  anger, 
drew  their  pay,  and  went  South  to  dedicate 
"their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their  sacred 
honor "  to  the  cause  of  human  slavery.  The 
situation  recalls  Carlyle's  description  of  "  a  gov 
ernment  tumbling  and  drifting  on  the  whirl 
pools  and  mud  deluges,  floating  atop  in  a  con 
spicuous  manner,  no  whither,  like  the  carcass 
of  a  drowned  ass."  Apparently  the  greatest  re 
public  on  earth,  one  which  had  been  baptized 
in  blood,  had  become  impotent,  and  was  about 
to  die  in  a  daze.  Is  it  matter  of  surprise,  then, 
that  all  Charleston  should  make  high  carnival  of 
the  bombardment  of  Sumter  ?  Thus  ended  the 
ghastliest  farce  in  the  annals  of  history,  and 
thus  began  the  bloodiest  of  tragedies. 

But  the  South,  once  committed  to  error,  per 
severed  in  the  face  of  defeat.  Never,  in  an  evil 
cause,  did  a  great  people  fight  more  gallantly, 
nor  endure  more  privations  uncomplainingly. 
Spurred  by  the  invincible  spirit  of  their  women, 
encouraged  by  the  pious  exhortations  of  their 
clergy,  and  goaded  by  the  indomitable  pride  of 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  59 

their  leaders,  they  fought  the  fight  to  the  bitter 
end,  recognizing  only  the  remorseless  fact  of 
invasion,  and  neither  reflecting  on  the  past,  nor 
speculating  on  the  future.  The  star  of  empire 
was  in  its  zenith.  Success  would  have  meant 
irretrievable  ruin  to  the  South.  Already  war 
fare  had  enthroned  an  absolute  monarch,  whom 
a  pleasant  fiction  dominated  a  President.  Vic 
tory  would  have  deified  him.  Parliamentary  gov 
ernment  existed  only  in  name.  The  Confederate 
Congress,  whose  meetings  were  mostly  secret, 
sank  into  obscurity  and  neglect.  The  brain  of 
the  South  was  done  with  legislating,  and  had 
gone  to  fighting.  The  planters,  who  dominated 
before  the  war  as  land  and  slave  owners,  ruled 
with  yet  more  masterful  hand  as  military  offi 
cers,  and  the  people  who  had  suffered  the  com 
pulsion  of  drastic  conscriptions,  and  who  had 
been  disciplined  by  army  service,  had  become 
accustomed  to  yield  unquestioning  obedience 
to  their  ranking  officers  and  to  the  central  gov 
ernment.  The  theory  of  states'  rights,  used 
as  a  shield  to  cover  a  century's  revolutionary 
designs,  early  fell  into  disrepute,  and  was  re 
vived  later,  in  all  simplicity,  by  North  Carolina, 


6O  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

only  to  disappear  forever  before  the  threat  of 
martial  law.  Throughout  the  South,  freedom  of 
speech,  freedom  of  the  press,  the  right  of  trial 
by  jury,  all  were  gone.  Independence  achieved 
within  the  lines  of  original  secession,  the  forms 
of  Republican  government  might  have  been  re 
stored.  But  the  soul  was  fled,  and  forever. 


VIIL 

It  is  impossible  to  trace  in  detail  the  great 
servile  empire  which  once  loomed  so  porten 
tously,  but  which  now  belongs  to  shadow  land. 
Certain  things,  may,  however,  be  predicated. 
The  new  slave  State  would  be  essentially  mili 
tary  in  character.  Born  of  a  sleepless  antago 
nism,  it  could  never  relinquish  the  sword.  It 
would  be  isolated,  contemned,  and  in  a  measure 
proscribed  by  the  nations  of  the  earth ;  but  it 
would  also  be  feared.  Their  enemies  humbled 
in  dust  and  blood,  the  slaveholders,  arrogant 
before,  would  become  drunk  with  pride.  Sla 
very  vindicated  by  that  might  which  makes 
right,  they  would  proclaim  her  divinity  to  an  in 
fidel  world,  and  would  proselytize  with  a  flaming 


THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  6 1 

scimitar.  The  Confederate  legions,  trained  to 
victory  by  a  great  war,  would  be  an  irresistible 
army  of  conquest.  The  slave  dominions  would 
unfold  like  a  fan,  Maximilian's  government  would 
fall  helplessly,  even  as  it  did  fall,  and  the  empire 
would  coil  itself  unhindered  about  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  Exhaustion  of  the  soil,  preservation 
against  watchful  enemies,  and  lust  of  power 
would  steadily  impel  to  territorial  aggrandize 
ment  ;  and  slavery,  winding  its  way  across  the 
isthmus,  would  "  find  no  limit  but  the  Southern 
ocean."  Nor  is  this  all.  The  depletion  of  the 
labor  force,  counter  colonization  schemes  by 
rival  powers,  and  a  proper  fealty  to  the  "  divine 
institution  "  would  compel  also  the  revival  of  the 
foreign  slave  traffic,  now  truly  a  "  missionary 
enterprise."  Black  slavers  would  spread  their 
wings  in  flight,  to  hover,  carrion-like,  about  the 
coasts  of  Africa,  and  communication  between 
the  two  shores  would  for  a  time  be  rapid  and 
constant.  These  conditions  fulfilled,  the  dream 
would  become  reality,  the  slave  nation  empire. 
Truly,  an  empire  !  for  a  slave  economy  never  dif 
fers  from  itself.  A  slave  country  cannot  but  be 
brutalized  by  its  system  of  labor  ;  the  govern- 


62  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

ment  of  many,  perhaps  of  the  most,  of  its  sub 
jects  is  founded  in  force,  not  in  consent  ;  laws 
are  imposed  rather  than  agreed  to  ;  there  is  an 
intolerance  of  opinion  and  of  peaceful  arbitra 
tion  of  wrongs,  and  a  violation  of  human  rights 
which  does  not  halt  at  the  color  line  nor  at 
political  boundaries.  Whatever  its  form,  what 
ever  its  name,  howsoever  fair  its  beginnings,  a 
slave  government  will  degenerate  into  a  des 
potism,  orderly  or  capricious,  as  circumstances 
may  determine.  If  it  be  a  warring  nation,  —  as 
the  Southern  empire  must  have  been,  owing  to 
the  predatory  habits  of  its  free  population,  the 
government  of  conquered  peoples,  and  the  hos 
tility  of  free  countries,  —  its  head  would  be  a 
dictator.  There  would  be  factious  contentions 
with  and  among  the  nobles,  and  intervals  of 
chaos,  to  be  followed  by  the  advent  of  a  Caesar, 
and  by  a  remorseless  absolutism. 

And  what  of  the  North,  left  by  secession  a 
dishonored  fragment  ?  Would  the  free  States 
bind  about  them  more  closely  the  ties  of  union, 
or  would  the  principle  of  union  be  lost  ?  Would 
the  States  upon  the  Pacific  coast  turn  away  from 
the  pathless  desert,  and  look  beyond  the  ocean 


THE   SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  63 

where  their  hope  of  commerce  lay?  Would 
the  East  separate  from  the  West,  and  would  the 
West  join  with  the  South  ?  In  the  very  heat 
of  the  war  Vallandigham  said:  "There  is  not 
one  drop  of  rain  that  falls  on  the  whole  vast  ex 
panse  of  the  Northwest  that  does  not  find  its 
home  in  the  bosom  of  the  Gulf.  We  must  and 
we  will  follow  it,  with  travel  and  trade ;  not  by 
treaty,  but  by  right ;  freely,  peaceably ;  without 
restriction  or  tribute,  under  the  same  govern 
ment  and  flag." 

But  the  Mississippi  could  flow  unvexed  to  the 
sea  only  under  the  black  flag  of  slavery.  Would 
commerce  continue  to  follow  the  waterways,  or 
would  it  be  deflected  east  by  artificial  channels  ? 
Would  there  be  custom  houses  at  every  border, 
and  standing  armies  to  enforce  a  right  of  way 
over  adjacent  territory  ?  Would  there  be  wide 
spread  commercial  panics  growing  out  of  the 
enormous  waste  caused  by  the  war  of  the  Rebel 
lion,  and  by  unfavorable  commercial  and  political 
conditions  ?  Would  new  leagues  or  confedera 
cies  be  formed  which  should  possess  the  element 
of  stability,  or  would  they,  too,  be  involved  in 
strife  and  be  torn  with  civil-  dissensions  ?  It  is 


64  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

not  possible  to  measure  the  extent  of  the  calam 
ity.  It  might  be  more,  or  it  might  be  less,  but 
we  know  that  it  would  be  great.  It  is  probable 
that  freedom  would  still  be  a  bond  of  union,  that 
the  States  of  the  North,  wearying  of  unworthy 
bickerings  and  petty  jealousies,  would  gird  them 
selves  for  a  common  purpose ;  that  marriages 
made  between  free  and  slave  States  would  be 
dissolved  or  would  grow  into  a  more  perfect 
union  by  the  elimination  of  slavery,  and  that  the 
Northern  idea  would  finally  triumph,  either  in 
patient  waiting,  or  in  mighty  conflict  on  blood- 
drenched  fields. 

The  Southern  empire  would  probably  share 
the  fate  of  Rome  in  its  declining  days.  It  would 
first  lose  the  provinces  outlying  on  the  north 
either  by  military  invasion,  or,  as  surely,  by  the 
slow  working  of  economic  laws.  The  reopening 
of  the  slave  trade  would  make  slave-breeding  un 
profitable,  and  gradually  the  border  States  would 
fall  away,  subject,  as  they  must  be,  to  competi 
tion,  and  to  other  modifying  influences  of  the 
Northern  industrial  system.  Later,  the  other 
Southern  States  would  be  recovered  to  freedom, 
either  through  an  increasing  sterility  of  the 


THE   SOUTHERN  EMPIRE.  65 

land,  or  through  a  dearth  of  slave  labor,  caused 
by  the  ultimate  suppression  of  the  slave  trade. 
Slavery  would  thus  owe  its  destruction  to  one 
of  two  processes  which  secession  might  impede, 
but  which  it  could  not  defeat.  The  slave  em 
pire  would  recede  slowly  towards  the  tropics, 
giving  up  all  its  old  possessions  in  the  republic, 
withering  in  the  North,  enlarging  by  tumorous 
growth  in  the  South,  until  finally  it  should  be 
come  an  inert  mass,  be  drained  of  its  vitality, 
fade  into  a  mere  geographical  expression,  and 
perish  of  inherent  weakness  and  decay.  Or, 
perchance,  the  end  would  be  hastened  by  foreign 
intervention.  The  slave  empire,  as  a  political 
idea  and  entity,  would  be  a  defiance  of  the  moral 
sense  of  the  civilized  world,  and  would  excite  an 
international  crusade,  which,  beginning  on  the 
coasts  of  Africa,  might  lay  low  the  very  citadel. 
In  any  event,  the  slave  State  would  be  doomed, 
whether  it  should  die  of  itself  or  by  the  hand  of 
the  executioner.  All  this,  however,  after  many, 
many  years  !  And  who  can  say  what  misery 
and  disaster  would  be  crowded  into  that  hiatus 
of  freedom  !  But  it  is  useless  to  multiply  hypo 
theses.  Although  we  may  not  differ  widely  in 


66  THE  SOUTHERN  EMPIRE. 

our  conclusions,  our  speculations  are  in  air.  We 
can  only  know  that,  a  brief  twenty-five  years 
ago,  the  American  Union,  freighted  with  the  best 
aspirations  of  humanity,  narrowly  escaped  ship 
wreck,  and  that  a  great  storm  subsided  into  a 
billow  of  half  a  million  of  graves. 


OXFORD. 


OXFORD. 

OXFORD,  "  sweet  city  of  dreaming  spires," 
is  England  in  miniature.  It  has  been  the  seat 
of  government,  of  learning,  and  of  ecclesiasti 
cal  agitation.  Eight  centuries  are  reflected  in 
the  glories  of  its  architecture.  Its  halls  and 
chapels  are  clustered  memories. 

On  a  clear  night,  when  the  gray  of  the  build 
ings  is  silvered  by  the  moonlight,  and  the  shad 
ows  of  the  quaint  lanes  of  Oxford  are  deepen 
ing,  when  "  Great  Tom  "  is  * 

"  Swinging  slow  with  sullen  roar," 

or,  perchance,  the  bonny  Christ  Church  bells 
are  ringing  out  on  the  still  air,  a  ramble  through 
the  "  quads,"  deserted  by  all  save  their  ghostly 
effigies,  and  in  the  gardens  by  the  battered,  ivy- 
mantled  walls,  melts  the  prose  of  life  into 
poesy,  and  discovers  to  the  imaginative  the  ec 
stasy  of  melancholy.  The  bells  have  ceased. 


70  OXFORD. 

But  in  yonder  chapel,  whose  windows  are  fret 
ted  with  majestical  fire,  the  swelling  tones  of 
the  organ  and  the  voices  of  the  choristers  rise 
in  a  flood  of  melody  that  reechoes  through  the 
vaulted  building,  and  with  trembling  cadence 
dies  away  in  the  silent  night.  Near  are  the 
cloisters,  where  the  seed  of  learning  was  hidden 
long  ago,  and  stealthily  nourished  to  blossom 
out  in  after  time  into  a  goodly  tree. 

Oxford  is  one  of  the  battle  grounds  of  human 
thought,  for  peace  hath  its  victories.  It  has 
been  the  cradle  and  grave  of  opinion.  Great 
names  stud  its  books,  and  clothe  its  history 
"with  the  beauty  of  a  thousand  stars."  It  has 
perspective  and  atmosphere.  It  is  a  vast  store 
house  of  associations,  and  it  speaks  to  the  youth 
who  throng  its  corridors,  in  various  language. 
The  impulses  and  aspirations,  the  intellectual 
prejudices  and  animosities,  of  each  generation 
are  here  writ  in  stone,  and  the  time-stained,  yet 
time-defying  walls  still  serenely  stand  to  mock 
the  defeated  purposes  of  founders,  and  to  aver 
age  the  vicissitudes  of  thought.  Oxford  has  al 
ways  been  the  mirror  of  the  English  mind,  and 
all  England  has  been  the  reflex  of  its  agitations. 


OXFORD.  Jl 

It  was  as  fruitful  a  source  of  disturbance  to  the 
country  in  the  past  as  is  Moscow  to  Russia  in 
the  present.  It  has  been  the  theatre  of  strife 
between  the  regular  and  secular  clergy ;  be 
tween  nominalism  and  realism ;  between  scho 
lasticism  and  the  new  learning  ;  between  Cathol 
icism  and  Protestantism ;  between  the  civil  and 
the  common  law.  It  was  the  headquarters  of 
Charles  I.  during  the  revolution,  and  was  long 
the  seat  of  Jacobitism.  Methodism  and  Tracta- 
rianism  took  their  rise  here.  Although  it  has 
ceased  to  be  the  focus  of  political  life,  it  is  still 
the  seed-plot  of  statesmen.  In  literature  its  in 
fluence  was  never  so  great  as  to-day. 

The  origin  of  the  town,  which  is  older  than 
the  university,  may  be  dated  back  to  the  first 
centuries  of  the  era.  Situated  on  the  Thames, 
Oxford  was  a  defensive  point  against  the  inroad- 
ing  Danes,  who  pushed  their  way  into  the  heart 
of  England  by  the  rivers,  and  was  one  of  the 
most  important  of  English  boroughs.  Then,  as 
afterwards,  it  was  the  seat  of  the  national  coun 
cils,  and  a  place  of  royal  residence.  It  suffered 
severely  in  the  Conquest,  and  shortly  thereafter 
Oxford  Castle  was  built  by  Robert  D'Oigli,  to 


72  OXFORD. 

whose  tender  mercies  Oxfordshire  had  been 
committed  by  William  the  Conqueror.  It  was 
from  this  castle,  on  the  night  before  its  capitula 
tion  to  King  Stephen,  that  the  Empress  Maud 
fled  over  the  snow  and  ice  to  Abingdon,  clad 
in  robes  of  white,  and  accompanied  by  three 
knights-of-arms. 

Public  teaching  followed  hard  upon  the  Con 
quest,  and  was  probably  due  to  it,  although 
before  that  time  many  scholars  resided  here. 
Learning  naturally  crystallized  about  the  monas 
teries,  and  the  Priory  of  St.  Frideswide  was  per 
haps  the  magnet  which  originally  attracted  the 
students.  If  this  conjecture  be  wise,  then  the 
rise  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  like  that  of  Sa- 
lernum,  the  first  of  the  universities  of  the  Mid 
dle  Ages,  belongs  to  the  great  cenobite  Order  of 
St.  Benedict.  The  admirable  zeal  of  this  order 
for  the  diffusion  of  secular  learning  has  been 
attributed  to  the  simplicity  of  its  "  knowingly 
unknowing  and  wisely  unlearned  "  head,  who,  in 
enjoining  his  followers  to  collect  books,  forgot 
that  all  writings  are  not  religious,  and  so,  hap 
pily,  proscribed  none.  After  a  while  the  Bene 
dictine  monks  were  displaced  from  St.  Prides- 


OXFORD.  73 

wide  by  the  Augustinian  canons,  whose  school 
became  famous  for  its  disputations  or  "  Aus 
tins."  And  then  came  the  Black  and  the  Gray 
and  the  White  Friars,  with  whom  the  univer 
sity,  when  fully  grown,  waged  war  ceaselessly. 
The  religious  houses  in  Oxford  belonging  to 
the  Abbeys  of  Abingdon  and  Eynsham  should 
be  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  claustral 
schools  of  St.  Frideswide  as  among  the  sources 
of  the  university.  The  story  that  Alfred 
founded  this  great  seat  of  learning  is  impos 
ing,  but  apocryphal.  The  name  of  the  uni 
versity  is  not  mentioned  in  history  before  the 
Norman  Conquest.  The  impulse  to  learning  in 
Great  Britain  seems  first  to  have  come  from  Ire 
land,  whose  missionaries  founded  many  monas 
teries.  In  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries  the 
most  important  place  of  teaching  in  England  was 
the  cathedral  school  at  York,  whither  flocked 
the  youth  who  had  exhausted  the  capacity  of 
lesser  schools.  To  monastic  institutions  the 
world  owes  something.  At  the  Abbey  of 
Whitby,  "  the  Westminster  of  Northumbrian 
kings,"  where  the  Roman  and  Irish  churches 
had  their  fateful  trial,  Csedmon  caught  the  in- 


74  OXFORD. 

spiration  of  his  song.  The  monastery  of  Jarrow 
was  the  hermitage  of  Baeda,  the  father  of  Eng 
lish  history  and  learning.  Dunstan  was  born 
near  the  .monastery  of  Glastonbury,  and  after 
wards  became  its  abbot.  Lanfranc  and  An- 
selm  successively  taught  in  the  famous  and 
fruitful  Abbey  of  Bee.  Macaulay  compares  the 
church  with  the  ark,  riding  alone,  "  amidst 
darkness  and  tempest,  on  the  deluge  beneath 
which  all  the  great  works  of  ancient  power  and 
wisdom  lay  entombed,  bearing  within  her  that 
feeble  germ  from  which  a  second  and  more  glo 
rious  civilization  was  to  spring."  The  services 
of  the  church  are  undoubted,  and  the  figure  is 
fine.  But  in  justice  it  must  be  said  that  the 
church  destroyed  more  manuscripts  than  she 
saved,  and  that  the  preservation  of  classical 
learning  is  due  almost  wholly  to  the  cultivated 
tastes  of  the  infidel  Arab  and  Jew.  When 
Latin  became  a  dead  language,  all  that  was 
left  of  literature  in  the  west  was  buried  with 
it.  It  augured  well,  therefore,  that  the  church, 
which  dislikes  innovation,  should  retain  this 
language  as  a  common  vehicle  of  communica 
tion  between  the  various  countries  of  Europe. 


OXFORD,  75 

But  unfortunately  the  churchmen,  who  were  the 
only  learned  men,  were  exclusively  devotional. 
"  Literature  became  religious,  and,  being  reli 
gious,  ceased  to  be  literature."  The  church 
councils  forbade  the  reading  of  pagan  and  secu 
lar  books  ;  taste  declined ;  the  classic  models 
themselves  were  lost,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of 
manuscripts,  the  indifference  of  custodians,  and 
the  absence  of  printing ;  and  the  love  of  learn 
ing  became  extinct.  The  Romano  -  Hellenic 
schools  withered  under  imperial  patronage  and 
other  influences,  and  western  Europe  fell  into 
intellectual  torpor,  from  which  it  was  not  fully 
aroused  until  the  Protestant  Reformation.  There 
was  a  revival  by  Charlemagne,  but  it  was  short 
lived.  He  established  a  palace  school,  and  en 
deavored  to  raise  the  standard  of  teaching  in 
the  monasteries,  those  feeble  survivals  of  the 
Romano  -  Hellenic  schools.  Half  a  century 
later,  Alfred  founded  a  palace  school  in  England. 
But  his  work  did  not  endure.  He  himself  said 
that  he  knew  of  no  priests  south  of  the  Thames 
who  understood  the  meaning  of  the  Latin 
prayers  they  used.  In  fact,  the  church  was  in  a 
state  of  hopeless  and  sodden  ignorance.  Even 


76  OXFORD. 

the  very  bishops  were  illiterate.  Such  instruc 
tion  as  was  given  by  the  monasteries  was  sadly 
deficient  in  quantity  and  quality.  These  schools 
affected  to  teach  the  seven  liberal  arts  of  the 
Romano-Hellenic  schools ;  the  ancient  trivium, 
consisting  of  grammar,  rhetoric,  and  dialectics, 
and  the  quadrivium,  consisting  of  music,  arith 
metic,  geometry,  and  astronomy.  According  to 
the  monkish  distich,  — 

"  Gramm.  loquitur,  Dia.  vera  docet,  Rhet.  verba  colorat : 
Mus.  canit,  Ar.  numerat,  Geo.  ponderat,  Ast.  colit  astra." 

But  in  truth  they  did  little  of  the  sort.  The 
arithmetic  of  Cassiodorus,  the  text-book  com 
monly  used,  consisted  of  less  than  three  folio 
pages.  Grammar  and  rhetoric  were  scarcely 
more  pretentious.  Geometry  was  a  crude  out 
line.  Music  was  reduced  to  church  chants,  and 
astronomy  was  limited  to  the  calculation  of 
Easter  and  festival  days.  Boys  were  taught  to 
read  and  write,  merely  that  they  might  study 
the  Bible,  and  multiply  copies  of  it.  The  object 
of  education  was  purely  religious,  and  temporali 
ties  were  neglected.  The  world  was  to  end  in 
the  year  1000.  From  the  sixth  century  to  the 
eleventh  century,  only  two  names,  in  the  opinion 


OXFORD.  77 

of  Hallam,  are  worthy  of  mention  by  the  his 
torian  :  Scotus  Erigena,  a  student  of  Greek,  who 
translated  the  pseudo-Dionysian  writings,  and 
who  evolved  a  complete,  though  mystical  system 
of  philosophy  ;  and  Pope  Silvester  II.,  who  was 
deeply  educated  in  the  Moorish  schools,  and  who 
gained  the  papal  chair  —  the  voice  of  supersti 
tion  whispered  —  through  the  intervention  of 
the  devil. 

But  with  the  twelfth  century  came  the  dawn. 
The  rise  of  universities  was  only  a  part  of 
a  widespread  movement,  political  and  moral, 
which,  to  quote  the  compact  statement  of 
Laurie,  showed  itself  "  in  the  Order  of  Chivalry, 
in  the  Crusades,  the  rise  of  free  towns,  the  in 
corporation  of  civic  life,  the  organization  of 
industries  in  the  form  of  guilds,  and,  we  may 
also  add  as  another  indication  of  the  mental 
quickening,  in  the  rise  of  a  Provencal  modern 
language  and  literature,  and  not  a  few  heresies." 

The  cathedral  and  monastic  schools,  which 
were  the  only  centres  of  learning  in  Europe, 
were  the  germs  of  the  universities  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  These  universities  were  a  growth,  and 
not  a  creation.  They  arose  out  of  and  grew  up 


78  OXFORD. 

about  the  monasteries,  which  contained  schools 
of  two  kinds  :  the  inner  or  claustral  school,  re 
served  for  the  oblati,  or  those  who  intended  to 
devote  themselves  to  a  monastic  life,  and  the 
outer  school,  open  to  the  clerici  generally.  At 
certain  places,  such  as  Oxford  and  Cambridge  in 
England,  and  at  Paris  on  the  Continent,  the 
attendance  at  these  schools  exceeded  the  limits 
of  the  monasteries,  and  there  was  an  overflow 
of  students  into  boarding  halls  or  schools  which 
were  opened  in  the  neighborhood  by  graduates, 
or  by  itinerant  teachers.  In  Oxford,  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  there  were  more  than  seventy 
of  these  halls.  Gradually  the  students  freed 
themselves  from  monastic  control,  and  formed 
learned  communities  of  their  own.  They  elected 
masters,  prescribed  their  own  government,  and 
assumed  sole  jurisdiction  of  offenses  committed 
by  any  of  themselves.  They  became  literary 
republics,  independent  of  civic,  civil,  and  papal 
power,  the  privileges  which  they  assumed  being 
formally  recognized  by  letters  patent  or  by  papal 
decree.  When  their  freedom  was  threatened  by 
the  covetousness  of  the  municipality,  the  crown, 
or  the  Pope,  they  would  jealously  guard  their 


OXFORD.  79 

own  rights  by  playing  off  these  powers  against 
each  other. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  term  "  universitas  " 
implied  no  universality  of  study,  nor  indeed  did 
it  refer  to  it.  The  word  meant  "  community," 
and  was  applied  to  any  corporation,  municipality, 
or  guild.  What  we  call  a  "  university  "  was  then 
known  as  a  universitas  literaria  (learned  com 
munity),  which  might  contain  subordinate  univer- 
sitates  based  upon  nationality  or  upon  a  course 
of  study.  A  universitas  literaria,  or  a  studium 
generate,  as  it  was  sometimes  designated,  was  a 
privileged,  self-governing  school,  which  had  spe 
cialized  one  or  more  studies,  and  which  was  open 
to  all  comers  from  any  part  of  the  world.1  Thus, 
the  arts'  school  at  Salernum  became  a  university 
when  medicine  was  specialized  by  Constantinus, 
a  great  traveler  who  had  translated  many  medi 
cal  works  from  the  Arabic.  Students  of  various 
races  and  nations  gathered  here,  where  instruc 
tion  was  given  in  four  languages,  Greek,  Arabic, 
Hebrew,  and  Latin,  and  where  a  licentia  medendi, 
or  license  to  practice  the  healing  art,  was  con 
ferred.  Without  the  Saracenic  influence  which 

1  Vide  Laurie's  Rise  and  Constitution  of  Universities,  Caput  X. 


8O  OXFORD. 

led  to  the  study  of  the  liberal  arts  in  Europe, 
the  university  movement  would  have  been  long 
deferred.  The  academies,  universities,  and  libra 
ries  at  Bagdad,  Cairo,  Cordova,  Granada,  and 
Seville  were  magnificent  and  famous,  and  were 
the  resort  of  many  students  from  the  north, 
even  from  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  Every  li 
brary  had  its  translators,  and  thus  much  of 
Greek  literature  was  saved  to  us.  At  Bologna, 
Irnerius  created  a  university  by  specializing  the 
Roman  law,  and  the  beneficial  influence  of  this 
revival  it  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate.  The 
new  municipal  and  trade  corporations,  which 
had  formed  a  cordon  about  feudalism,  were 
seeking  a  definition  of  their  property  rights  ac 
cording  to  some  coherent  legal  system,  and 
while  the  Roman  law  was  not  considered  favor 
able  to  political  liberty,  it  was  in  other  re 
spects  an  admirable  instrument  of  justice. 
Whatever  its  defects,  its  scientific  precision 
was  at  least  invaluable  as  a  method.  But  in 
England  it  had  a  rival  in  the  common  law, 
which,  though  sometimes  crude  in  its  judgments 
and  harsh  in  its  penalties,  was  strong  where  the 
Roman  law  was  weak.  In  1 149,  Vacarius,  of  the 


OXFORD.  8 1 

university  of  Bologna,  expounded  the  Roman 
law  in  Oxford,  and  this  was  the  beginning  of 
the  strife  between  the  two  systems  of  juris 
prudence.  Vacarius  was  forbidden  by  King 
Stephen  to  continue  his  lectures,  and  after 
wards  the  Parliament  of  Merton  declared  the 
immutability  of  the  laws  of  England.  But  the 
civil  law  found  an  ally  in  the  church.  The 
political  absolutism  which  tainted  the  Roman 
system  was  congenial  to  the  priestly  hierarchy, 
and  the  civil  and  canon  laws  soon  became  inter 
woven.  The  church  objected  to  the  common 
law  because  it  was  founded  in  the  customs  of 
the  laity  and  not  in  the  imperial  constitutions. 
But  the  nobility  and  the  people  of  England 
clung  tenaciously  to  their  own.  Finally,  in  the 
reign  of  King  Henry  III.,  the  church  acknow 
ledged  defeat,  by  compelling  the  clergy  to  with 
draw  from  the  secular  courts,  where  they  alone 
were  serving  as  the  judges  and  the  advocates. 
The  civil  law  maintained  its  foothold  in  England 
only  in  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  in  the  chancel 
lors'  courts  of  the  universities,  and  in  the  High 
Court  of  Chancery.  Students  of  the  common 
law,  thus  excluded  from  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 


82  OXFORD. 

founded  a  seminary  of  their  own  at  London, 
under  the  name  of  the  Inns  of  Court  and  of 
Chancery,  which  flourished  under  the  protection 
of  the  crown,  and  which  to-day  is  the  only  portal 
of  admission  to  the  English  bar. 

Oxford  must  have  attained  much  prominence 
as  a  seat  of  learning  in  the  twelfth  century  to 
have  attracted  Vacarius  from  Italy.  Universities 
had  arisen  over  all  western  Europe,  and,  saving 
the  University  of  Paris,  Oxford  was  the  most 
celebrated  of  them.  Although  there  were  few 
facilities  of  communication  between  these  insti 
tutions  which  lay  so  widely  apart,  passionate 
devotees  of  learning,  attracted  by  the  fame  of 
some  great  teacher,  would  find  their  way,  on 
foot,  from  one  place  to  another,  many  of  them 
begging  as  they  went.  They  gathered  in  thou 
sands  at  the  various  universities,  notably  at 
Paris,  at  Bologna,  at  Oxford,  and  at  Cambridge, 
where  they  divided  into  groups  according  to 
their  political  allegiance.  The  "nations"  thus 
formed  were  a  remarkable  feature  of  university 
life  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  were  a  fertile  cause 
of  strife.  At  Paris  there  were  four  nations,  the 
Picard,  the  Norman,  the  French,  —  which  in- 


OXFORD.  83 

eluded  Italians,  Spaniards,  Greeks,  and  Orien 
tals, —  and  the  English,  which  embraced  the 
English,  Irish,  Germans,  Poles,  and  all  others 
from  the  north  of  Europe.  Each  nation  was  in 
dependent,  and  exercised  supervision  of  its  own 
students  and  their  lodging-houses.  At  Bologna 
the  eighteen  nations  who  represented  countries 
north  of  the  Alps  coalesced  into  the  universitas 
citramontanorumy  and  the  seventeen  southern 
nations  formed  the  universitas  ultramontanomm. 
Each  nation  elected  a  consiliarius,  and  the  col 
lective  consiliarii  of  each  universitas  elected  a 
rector.  The  government  of  the  universities  dif 
fered  in  detail,  but  the  constitution  of  all  of 
them  was  fundamentally  democratic.  The  uni 
versities  were  distinct  entities,  claiming  and 
obtaining  sovereign  rights.  Bulls  beneficial  to 
them  were  frequently  issued  by  the  Popes, 
heresy  being  neither  suspected  nor  dreaded. 
The  privileges  conferred  by  the  crown  upon  the 
students  included  exemption  from  taxes,  from 
military  service,  and  from  the  jurisdiction  of 
ordinary  tribunals.  The  right  to  elect  a  rector 
was  a  custom  shared  by  the  trade  guilds,  and 
the  immunity  from  civic  authority  was  perhaps 


84  OXFORD. 

an  extension  of  the  right  of  benefit  of  clergy. 
Inasmuch  as  the  universities  of  tne  Middle 
Ages  owned  no  permanent  buildings,  and  were 
possessed  only  of  movable  property,  the  stu 
dents  could  keep  the  towns  and  the  doctors  in 
a  state  of  subjection  by  threats  of  migration, 
and  these  threats  were  not  idle. 

Disputes  at  the  University  of  Bologna  led  to 
the  establishment  of  the  University  of  Vicenza 
in  1204,  and  that  of  Padua  in  1222.  In  Paris, 
owing  to  the  youth  of  the  students,  many  of 
whom  attended  the  Notre  Dame  arts'  school, 
out  of  which  the  university  arose,  the  masters 
shared  in  the  government.  In  Oxford  there 
were  two  nations,  the  North  and  the  South,  and 
one  procurator  or  proctor  was  chosen  to  repre 
sent  each.  Originally,  the  proctors  were  elected 
by  the  regcntes,  or  teaching  masters,  who,  in 
early  times,  constituted  the  sole  legislature  of 
the  university.  Afterwards,  they  were  chosen  by 
the  whole  body  of  the  regentes  and  non-regcntes. 
Chiefly,  their  duty  was  to  keep  the  peace,  and 
their  authority  extended  even  to  the  impeach 
ment  of  the  chancellor.  Anciently,  the  chan 
cellor  was  nominated  by  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln, 


OXFORD.  85 

in  whose  see  the  town  of  Oxford  lay  ;  the 
church  claiming  jurisdiction  of  the  university. 
Later,  the  convocation  assumed  the  nominating 
power,  subject,  perhaps,  to  diocesan  confirma 
tion.  To-day,  the  chancellor  is  but  the  nominal 
head  of  the  university,  and  is  a  non-resident. 
His  duties  have  devolved  upon  the  vice-chan 
cellor,  who  is  elected  biennially  from  a  cycle 
composed  of  the  heads  of  colleges.  At  Prague, 
a  reorganization  of  the  nations  which  gave  the 
preponderance  of  power  to  the  Slavs  caused  an 
emigration  of  the  German  teachers  and  pupils 
to  Vienna,  Erfurt,  Heidelberg,  and  Leipsic.  Thus 
began  the  German  university  system.  In  Paris, 
in  1221,  a  Town  and  Gown  riot  occurred,  and, 
as  Queen  Blanche  and  the  bishop  favored  the 
Town,  certain  students  were  expelled.  The 
provost  attacked  the  students  at  their  games, 
and  slew  some  who  had  not  participated  in  the 
riot.  Thereupon  a  large  number  of  masters  and 
pupils  left  Paris  for  Orleans,  Toulouse,  and  Ox 
ford.  It  was  only  after  this  secession  that 
Oxford  ceased  to  be  an  arts'  school,  and  be 
came  a  university.  It,  too,  suffered  from  three 
secessions  within  a  century,  —  to  Reading,  to 


86  OXFORD. 

Northampton,  and  to  Stamford,  —  but  it  sur 
vived  them  all.  The  cause  of  the  secession  to 
Northampton  has  been  referred  to  the  rebel 
lion  of  the  sturdy  Earl  Simon,  who  held  his  par 
liament  in  Oxford,  and  with  whom  the  north 
ern  students  sided.  But  an  excuse  for  strife 
was  never  lacking.  The  times  were  troublous, 
and  full  of  sleepless  feuds.  Gown  was  noisy, 
lawless,  and  supercilious,  and  Town  smote  Gown 
whenever  chance  offered.  On  St.  Scholastica's 
day,  February  10,  1354(5),  there  was  a  bloody 
fray,  in  which  the  Town  was  reinforced  by  the 
Country.  "  Slea,  slea  !  havock,  havock  !  smyt 
fast !  give  gode  knocks !  "  was  the  battle-cry. 
Fourteen  halls  were  plundered,  forty  scholars 
were  killed,  and  the  university  was  left  deserted. 
For  this  grievous  deed  the  town  was  laid  under 
interdict  by  the  bishop,  and  was  shorn  of  many 
of  its  privileges  by  the  crown.  The  assize  of 
bread  and  wine  and  the  supervision  of  weights 
and  measures  were  taken  from  it,  and  were  in 
vested  in  the  university.  Nor  did  the  humilia 
tion  end  here.  For  nearly  five  centuries  there 
after,  by  a  decree  of  the  king,  the  mayor,  the 
bailiffs,  and  sixty  leading  citizens  were  obliged 


OXFORD.  87 

to  attend  mass  in  St.  Mary's,  the  university 
church,  on  each  anniversary  of  St.  Scholastica's 
day,  and  there  to  offer  at  the  high  altar  one 
penny  each  (a  goodly  sum  then),  of  which  two 
thirds  were  to  be  distributed  at  once  among  the 
poor  scholars. 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  Oxford  was  a  walled 
town,  extending  one  half  mile  one  way  and  one 
fourth  of  a  mile  another,  and  within  this  area 
it  is  said  that  twenty  thousand  students  were 
crowded.  This  number  is  largely  overstated, 
although  it  is  probable  that  the  attendance  in 
the  time  of  Roger  Bacon  was  much  greater  than 
it  is  now.  The  monasteries  and  cathedral  schools 
were  being  deserted  for  the  universities,  even 
cooks  and  servitors  were  enrolled,  and  many 
young  scholars  attended  the  grammar  schools 
at  Oxford,  as  the  licenses  for  "fetchers"  and 
"bringers"  indicate.  Chaucer,  in  his  delicious 
verse,  gives  us  a  contemporary  portrait  of  the 
Oxford  student  of  those  days  :  — 

"  A  clerk  ther  was  of  Oxenford  also, 
That  unto  logik  hadde  longe  i-go. 
As  lene  was  his  hors  as  is  a  rake, 
And  he  was  not  right  fat,  I  undertake ; 


88  OXFORD. 

But  lokede  holwe,  and  therto  soberly. 

Ful  thredbar  was  his  overest  courtepy. 

For  he  hadde  geten  him  yit  no  benefice, 

Ne  was  so  worldly  for  to  have  office, 

For  him  was  levere  have  at  his  beddes  heede 

Twenty  bookes,  clad  in  blak  or  reede, 

Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophye, 

Then  robes  riche,  or  fithele,  or  gay  sawtrye. 

But  al  be  that  he  was  a  philosophre, 

Yet  hadde  he  but  litel  gold  in  cofre  ; 

But  al  that  he  mighte  of  his  freddes  hente, 

On  bookes  and  on  lernyng  he  it  spente, 

And  busily  gan  for  the  soules  preye 

Of  hem  that  yaf  him  wherwith  to  scoleye  ; 

Of  studie  took  he  most  cure  and  most  heede. 

Not  oo  word  spak  he  more  than  was  neede, 

And  that  was  seid  in  forme  and  reverence 

And  schort  and  quyk,  and  ful  of -high  sentence. 

Sownynge  in  moral  vertu  was  his  speche, 

And  gladly  wolde  he  lerne,  and  gladly  teche." 

Within  the  walls  was  a  seething  mass  of  tem 
pestuous  life.  There  were  thousands  of  boys 
huddled  in  bare  lodging-houses,  "clustering 
around  teachers  as  poor  as  themselves  in  church- 
porch  and  house-porch,  drinking,  quarreling, 
dicing,  begging  at  the  corners  of  the  streets.  .  .  . 
Scholars  from  Kent  and  scholars  from  Scotland 
wage  the  bitter  struggle  of  South  and  North. 


OXFORD.  89 

At  nightfall  roysterer  and  reveler  roam  with 
torches  through  the  narrow  lanes,  defying  bailiffs, 
and  cutting  down  burghers  at  their  doors.  Now 
a  mob  of  clerks  plunges  into  the  Jewry,  and  wipes 
off  the  memory  of  bills  and  bonds  by  sacking  a 
Hebrew  house  or  two.  Now  a  tavern  row  be 
tween  scholar  and  townsman  widens  into  a  gen 
eral  broil,  and  the  academical  bell  of  St.  Mary's 
vies  with  the  town  bell  of  St.  Martin's  in  clang 
ing  to  arms.  Every  phase  of  ecclesiastical  con 
troversy  and  political  strife  is  preluded  by  some 
fierce  outbreak  in  this  turbulent  surging  mob. 
When  England  growls  at  the  exactions  of  the 
Papacy,  the  students  besiege  a  legate  in  the 
abbot's  house  at  Osney.  A  murderous  Town 
and  Gown  row  precedes  the  opening  of  the 
Barons'  War.  '  When  Oxford  draws  knife,'  runs 
the  old  rhyme,  '  England  's  soon  at  strife.'  "  1 

With  the  advent  of  the  collegiate  system  the 
brawls  became  less  frequent.  Decency  and  order 
were  enforced,  and  the  unattached  students  or 
"  chamberdeykins,"  the  leaders  in  lawlessness, 
were  suppressed  by  statute.  But  this  was  not 
all  of  the  reform.  The  colleges  superseded  the 

1  Green's  Short  History  of  the  English  People,  pp.  158,  159. 


QO  OXFORD. 

religious  houses,  which,  in  the  early  days  of  the 
university,  were  the  most  spacious  and  comfort 
able  buildings  in  Oxford.  Gradually,  too,  the 
number  of  licensed  halls  diminished,  until  now 
but  few  remain.  Then,  as  now,  the  university 
was  a  distinct  corporation,  which  included  the 
colleges  and  halls  but  was  not  included  by  them, 
and  it  is  possible  to-day  (by  recent  enactment), 
as  it  was  in  the  days  of  the  chamberdeykins,  to 
be  an  unattached  member  of  the  university. 

Merton  College,  founded  by  Walter  de  Mer- 
ton,  in  1264,  was  the  first  college  structure 
erected  in  Oxford,  and  was  the  model  of  the 
English  college  system.  The  statutes  drawn  by 
the  founder  were  characterized  by  such  wisdom 
and  foresight  that  they  remained  practically  un 
altered  during  seven  centuries.  Merton's  object 
was  anti-monastic,  the  cultivation  of  lay  learning, 
and  the  upbuilding  of  a  secular  class.  Although 
the  discipline  prescribed  was  severe,  and  ascetic 
in  character,  the  students  were  forbidden  ever 
to  take  vows,  and  were  required  to  study  phi 
losophy  and  the  liberal  arts  before  beginning 
theology.  Merton,  in  projecting  his  college, 
is  said  to  have  had  in  mind  the  Sorbonne,  a 


OXFORD.  QI 

college  of  the  University  of  Paris,  founded  by 
the  chaplain  of  Louis  IX.  fourteen  years  be 
fore.  In  Oxford,  two  colleges  besides  Merton 
were  established  in  the  thirteenth  century,  Uni 
versity  and  Balliol,  and  thereafter  colleges  ap 
peared  at  irregular  intervals,  averaging  about 
one  to  every  generation. 

Balliol  College  owes  its  foundation  to  a  woman. 
About  1260,  John  Balliol,  son  of  the  King  of 
Scotland  of  that  name,  made  certain  payments 
for  the  support  of  poor  students  at  Oxford,  but 
it  remained  for  his  widow,  Lady  De  Vorguilla, 
to  execute  the  trust  by  organizing,  in  1282, 
"The  House  of  the  Scholars  of  Balliol."  In 
her  charter  deed  Lady  De  Vorguilla  conceded 
the  principle  of  self-government,  and  refused  to 
place  legal  restrictions  upon  elections  to  the 
foundation.  Although  established  by  a  Scot, 
the  college  was  not  restricted  to  the  Scotch, 
and,  contrary  to  the  custom  of  the  times,  it  was 
not  made  the  mere  appanage  of  any  district, 
abbey,  or  institution.  It  was  open  to  the  world. 
De  Vorguilla's  object,  like  that  of  Walter  De 
Merton,  was  to  found  a  home  for  secular  learn 
ing,  and,  in  the  case  of  Balliol,  divinity  was  not 


92  OXFORD. 

even  taught  in  the  institution  until  the  four 
teenth  century.  The  foundation  may,  there 
fore,  be  regarded  as  a  protest  against  the  exclu 
sive  ecclesiasticism  of  the  times. 

The  most  notable  creation  of  the  fourteenth 
century  was  New  College,  the  benefaction  of 
William  of  Wykeham,  Bishop  of  Winchester. 
He  had  been  the  architect  of  Windsor  Castle, 
and  he  did  not  fail  to  impress  his  art  upon  the 
walls  of  his  Oxford  foundation.  New  College 
obtained  its  name  because  it  was  a  revelation  to 
the  college  world  of  comfort,  convenience,  and 
architectural  beauty.  The  spacious  cloisters, 
the  lofty  tower,  and  the  noble  chapel  are  en 
shrined  in  gardens  of  exquisite  beauty,  whose 
"  sweet,  sacred,  stately  seclusion  "  afford  a  refuge 
to  the  musing  scholar  and  the  dreaming  poet. 

The  colleges  justified  the  expectations  of  their 
creators  in  developing  nearly  all  of  the  men 
who  gave  distinction  to  the  university.  WThen 
scholasticism  reached  its  second  stage,  in  the 
translation  of  the  works  of  Aristotle  into  Latin, 
Oxford  gained  fame  for  subtle  disputation,  and 
became  preeminent  among  the  educational  insti 
tutions  of  the  Western  world.  Anthony  Wood, 


OXFORD.  93 

an  historian  of  Oxford,  who  flourished  four  cen 
turies  ago,  asks,  with  the  pride  of  an  ardent 
lover,  "  What  university,  I  pray,  can  produce  an 
invincible  Hales,  an  admirable  Bacon,  an  excel 
lent,  well-grounded  Middleton,  a  subtle  Scotus, 
an  approved  Burley,  a  resolute  Baconthorpe,  a 
singular  Ockham,  a  solid  and  industrious  Hoi- 
cot,  and  a  profound  Bradwardin  ?  all  of  which 
persons  flourished  within  the  compass  of  one 
century.  I  doubt  that  neither  Paris,  Bologna, 
nor  Rome,  that  grand  mistress  of  the  Christian 
world,  nor  any  place  else,  can  do  what  the  re 
nowned  Bellosite  (Oxford)  hath  done." 

Now  was  the  golden  age  of  the  universities, 
the  heralds  of  the  coming  day.  Knowing  no 
race,  nor  creed,  nor  country,  they  formed  a  cos 
mopolitan  league  of  learning  that  threatened  the 
isolation  of  feudalism.  Rich  and  poor,  noble 
and  peasant,  Christian  and  infidel,  Aryan  and 
Semite,  stood  upon  a  level.  There  was  but  one 
aristocracy,  that  of  the  intellect.  Truly  a  grand 
epoch,  and  a  fine  ideal  for  so  long  ago,  that 
promised  great  things  for  the  future.  But,  alas  ! 
the  votaries  of  learning  were  to  go  through  an 
ordeal  of  fire,  sweat,  blood,  and  agony  before 


94  OXFORD. 

they  should  come  into  undisputed  possession  of 
their  realm. 

The  first  scholar  to  earn  the  rebuke  of  the 
church,  was  Scotus  Erigena,  who  revived  the 
Platonic  theory  of  Universals  (with  an  infusion 
of  Aristotelianism).  He  was  accused  of  pan 
theism,  which  was  the  legitimate  outcome  of  his 
realism.  Two  centuries  later,  the  discussion  was 
begun  anew  by  Roscelin  and  Anselm,  nominalist 
and  realist  respectively,  and  thereafter  it  raged 
violently  in  the  schools  for  three  hundred  years. 
Roscelin's  advocacy  of  nominalism  or  individual 
ism  led  him  to  deny  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
and  for  this  he  was  summoned  before  the  Coun 
cil  of  Soissons,  where  he  was  forced  to  recant. 
His  pupil,  Abelard,  who  took  a  via  media  be 
tween  realism  and  nominalism,  signally  discom 
fited  William  of  Champeaux,  at  Paris,  and  ruled 
in  his  stead  at  the  university.  His  lectures  at 
tracted  thousands  of  students,  including  many 
from  Oxford.  In  combating  the  anti-Trinita 
rian  views  of  Roscelin,  he  himself  fell  under  the 
ban  of  the  church  council  ;  nor  was  this  the 
sum  of  his  offending.  His  book,  "  Sic  et  Non," 
a  compilation  of  the  antinomies  of  the  Fathers, 


OXFORD.  95 

was  regarded  as  an  heretical  attempt  to  apply 
logic  to  theology.  When  Abelard  forsook  Paris 
for  a  desert  place  in  Champagne,  he  took  the 
most  of  the  university  with  him  ;  nor,  indeed, 
could  he  rest  there.  But  everywhere  multitudes 
heard  him,  for  in  those  days  students  were 
eager.  Abelard  knew  little  of  the  works  of 
Aristotle,  which  were  transmitted  to  Europe  at 
last  through  the  helping  hands  of  Nestorians, 
Arabs,  and  Jews.  Hales,  the  Doctor  Invincible 
of  Oxford,  was  the  first  schoolman  acquainted 
with  all  of  them,  and  Grostete,  also  of  Oxford, 
was  among  the  first  to  expound  them  from  the 
original  Greek.  Aristotle  was  accepted  by  a 
protesting  church  as  a  logician,  and  afterwards, 
even  more  reluctantly,  as  a  metaphysician.  In 
1209,  a  synod  held  in  Paris  ordered  his  meta 
physical  volumes  to  be  burned. 

In  vain,  however.  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  An 
gelic  Doctor,  and  the  mendicant  orders  suc 
ceeded  in  Aristotelianizing  the  church.  The 
Thomists,  who  included  the  Dominicans  and 
Augustinians,  and  the  Scotists  or  Franciscans, 
warred  bitterly  with  each  other  over  metaphysical 
niceties,  even  as  did  the  Jansenists  and  Jesuits 


96  OXFORD. 

of  later  days.  The  Scotists  favored  free  will, 
the  Thomists  a  moderate  determinism  ;  the  quid- 
ditas  or  "  whatness  "  and  the  haecceitas  or  "  this- 
ness  "  of  the  individual,  which  became  involved 
in  the  problem  of  universals,  were  also  the  sub 
jects  of  heated  controversy.  Duns  Scotus,  who 
was  a  pupil  of  Merton  College,  Oxford,  and  a 
Franciscan,  won  the  title  of  Subtilis,  it  is  said, 
by  refuting  nearly  two  hundred  objections  which 
were  urged  by  the  Thomists  against  the  doctrine 
of  the  Immaculate  Conception.  Under  his  in 
fluence  the  University  of  Paris  formally  disap 
proved  the  position  taken  by  his  opponents. 

Next,  out  of  Oxford,  came  William  of  Ockham, 
the  pupil  and  rival  of  Duns  Scotus,  and  the 
greatest  of  the  scholastics.  To  him  belongs  the 
honor  practically  of  ending  the  discussion  of  the 
question  of  universals,  now  nearly  seventeen 
hundred  years  old,  and  seemingly  everlasting. 
He  maintained  that  universals  (general  ideas  or 
abstractions)  had  no  objective  existence  (ante 
rcm  or  extra  animam),  but  were  only  in  mcnte. 
"  Ockham's  razor  "  —  "  Entia  non  sunt  multipli- 
canda  prater  necessitate™ "  —  was  a  protest 
against  the  purely  deductive  mental  processes 


OXFORD.  97 

of  the  scholastics.  You  cannot  derive  the  indi 
vidual  from  the  universal.  You  must  begin 
with  the  singular  and  rise  to  the  general.  His 
writings  breathed  the  spirit  of  induction,  the 
acceptance  of  which  was  the  beginning  of  the 
modern  world.  Ockham  opposed  that  perfect 
representative  of  scholasticism,  Thomas  Aquinas, 
by  proclaiming  the  divorce  of  theology  and  phi 
losophy.  In  several  things  he  anticipated  Wyc- 
liffe.  He  attacked  the  temporal  sovereignty  of 
the  Pope,  and  pleaded  for  the  independence  of 
the  crown.  He  inveighed  against  the  luxury 
of  the  Franciscans,  combating  the  opinions  of 
Pope  John  XXII.  (he  whose  simony  Dante  con 
demned  through  the  mouth  of  St.  Peter  in  the 
Paradiso)  at  a  time  when  the  University  of  Paris 
was  cringing  to  obtain  his  patronage.  Ockham 
was  tried  for  heresy,  and  was  imprisoned  by  the 
Pope  at  Avignon  for  seventeen  weeks,  whence 
he  escaped  to  Munich.  In  1339,  his  works  were 
condemned  by  the  University  of  Paris,  but  time 
vindicated  him  in  the  acceptance  of  the  doctrine 
of  nominalism  as  an  orthodox  tenet. 

Ockham    had    sounded    the   death    knell    of 
scholasticism.     That   system   failed  because  it 


98  OXFORD. 

had  ignored  induction  and  had  endeavored  to 
arrive  at  truth  by  internal  light  alone.  It 
rendered  a  service  in  teaching  the  human  mind 
to  reason  acutely  from  given  premises,  but  the 
value  of  this  service  must  be  estimated  mod 
erately.  The  world  has  not  gone  wrong  so  much 
because  of  illogical  reasoning  as  because  the 
data  upon  which  that  reasoning  was  based  have 
been  false  or  insufficient,  and  therefore  mislead 
ing.  The  scholastics  chose  premises  to  which 
it  was  not  possible  to  apply  the  test  of  reason. 
All  things  seem  to  have  been  equally  probable 
in  an  age  whose  mental  characteristics  were 
astrology,  magic,  alchemy,  Neoplatonism,  the 
patristic  writings,  and  Aristotelianism.  The 
schoolmen  "  tied  and  untied  the  same  knot,  and 
formed  and  dissipated  the  same  cloud,"  debat 
ing  propositions  for  whose  terms  there  were  no 
corresponding  ideas.  In  the  latter  days  of  scho 
lasticism  some  frivolous  and  silly  questions  were 
asked  and  discussed :  Can  one  angel  occupy 
two  places,  or  can  two  angels  occupy  one  place 
at  the  same  time  ?  Was  the  head  formed  for 
the  brain  or  for  the  eye  ?  Has  a  rat,  which  has 
eaten  of  the  Host,  thereby  partaken  of  Christ's 


OXFORD.  99 

body  ?  Fanciful  coincidences,  such  as  that  of 
the  two  horns  of  the  beetle  and  of  the  moon, 
were  treated  as  relations.  The  inherent  weak 
ness  of  the  schoolmen  was  their  ignorance  of 
the  laws  of  evidence,  which,  preferring  a  natural 
to  a  strained  or  mystical  explanation  of  phe- 
nomona,  were  first  practically  applied  in  Europe 
by  the  medical  and  legal  professions. 

Scholastic  philosophy  lingered  long  because  it 
satisfied  the  taste  for  contention,  and  it  served 
at  least  two  ends  :  it  sharpened  the  tools  of 
thought  by  endowing  the  vulgar  languages  with 
"  precision  and  analytic  subtlety,"  and  it  inaugu 
rated  the  age  of  discussion.  It  found  an  arena 
in  the  universities  where  teaching  and  dispu 
tation  were  public  and  oral.  Knowledge  was 
meagre,  although  there  was  much  love  of  it,  and 
progress  was  small  because  the  refinements  of 
theology  absorbed  the  attention  of  the  subtlest 
minds.  The  only  intellectual  career  lay  in  or 
through  the  church,  and  theology  offered  the 
highest  rewards.  Those  who  devoted  themselves 
to  it  used  as  text-books  the  "  Sentences "  of 
Peter  the  Lombard,  and  the  "  Summa  "  of  Aqui 
nas.  Those  who  followed  the  law  studied  Jus- 


IOO  OXFORD. 

tinian  and  Gratian  ;  while  in  medicine,  Galen 
and  Hippocrates  were  the  chief  authorities. 

In  mathematics,  Roger  Bacon  complained  that 
f e\y  pupils  crossed  the  pons  asinorum  of  Euclid, 
and  this  was  true  for  long  afterwards.  He  said 
also  that  he  could  communicate  in  a  half  year  to 
any  intelligent  person  what  it  had  cost  him  forty 
years  to  acquire  ;  and  this  was,  perhaps,  less  a 
reflection  upon  the  methods  of  teaching  in  vogue, 
than  upon  the  pitiful  lack  of  knowledge.  Edu 
cation  was  gained  under  immense  disadvantages 
in  those  days.  There  was  no  university  press 
which  could  print  and  bind  the  whole  Bible  in 
twelve  hours.  There  was  not  even  a  translation 
of  the  Bible.  Manuscripts  were  brought  from 
afar,  and  were  precious  in  their  rarity.  One  can 
not  listen  without  a  pang  to  Bacon's  wail  for 
mathematical  instruments,  astronomical  tables, 
and  books. 

The  scarcity  of  manuscripts  has  been  consid 
ered  an  effect  of  ignorance  as  well  as  a  cause, 
and  it  has  been  intimated  that  the  monks  were 
not  so  actively  employed  in  copying  as  has 
been  supposed.  After  the  conquest  of  Egypt  by 
the  Saracens,  the  exportation  of  papyri  ceased. 


OXFORD.  10 1 

Writing  material  became  very  costly,  and  valu 
able  books  were  lost  to  posterity  through  era 
sures  for  new  writings.  Many  monasteries  pos 
sessed  only  one  missal.  The  Countess  of  Anjou 
paid  for  a  copy  of  the  Homilies  of  Haimon, 
Bishop  of  Halberstadt,  two  hundred  sheep,  five 
quarters  of  wheat,  and  the  same  of  rye  and  millet. 
To  a  later  and  un regenerate  generation  the 
price  seems  high.  Louis  XL  could  not  borrow 
a  work  of  Rasis,  the  Arabian  physician,  from 
the  Faculty  of  Medicine  of  Paris  without  pledg 
ing  a  good  deal  of  plate,  and  without  getting  a 
nobleman  to  go  his  surety  for  a  large  amount. 
From  this  it  may  be  inferred  either  that  books 
were  rare  and  dear,  or  that  the  faculty  knew  the 
king.  From  the  Jews  of  Oxford,  Roger  Bacon 
obtained  manuscripts  which  helped  him  in  his 
scientific  researches.  The  life  of  this  man,  the 
pioneer  of  experimental  science  and  exponent 
of  induction,  was  long  and  troubled.  Greeted 
as  Doctor  Mirabilis  in  Paris,  he  returned  to 
Oxford  and  joined  the  Franciscans.  Here  he 
was  accused  of  practicing  the  black  arts,  and 
was  interdicted  from  lecturing  by  the  general  of 
his  order.  A  ban  was  placed  upon  his  writings, 


102  OXFORD. 

and  he  was  sent  back  to  Paris,  where  he  re 
mained  under  strict  religious  surveillance  for 
ten  years.  At  last,  Guy  de  Folques,  a  church 
man  of  culture,  ascended  the  papal  chair.  He 
ordered  Bacon  to  write  a  treatise  for  him  upon 
the  sciences.  This  was  the  long-sought  oppor 
tunity,  and  Bacon  was  eager  to  grasp  it.  But 
he  had  spent  his  whole  fortune  and  that  of  his 
family,  in  his  scientific  investigations,  and  was 
impoverished.  Finally,  his  friends  came  to  his 
rescue  by  pawning  their  goods,  and  he  set  to 
work  with  such  vigor  that  in  eighteen  months 
he  completed,  under  extraordinary  difficulties, 
the  Opera  Majus,  Minus,  and  Tertium.  These 
he  forwarded  to  the  Pope  by  a  trusty  messen 
ger,  but  it  is  not  certain  that  he  received  a 
reply.  Some  years  after,  in  consequence  of 
having  written  a  protest  against  clerical  vices 
and  ignorance,  he  was  thrown  into  prison,  where 
he  was  confined  for  fourteen  years.  Shortly 
after  his  release  he  died,  with  these  pathetic 
words  upon  his  lips :  "  I  repent  now  that  I 
have  given  myself  so  much  trouble  for  the  love 
of  science." 

When  Bacon  was  at  Oxford,  he  used  as  a  lab- 


OXFORD.  1O3 

oratory  and  observatory  a  pharos  of  Stephen, 
erected  on  Folly  Bridge.  This  tower  was  re 
moved  in  1779,  an  act  of  vandalism  which  evoked 
the  following  verses  :  — 

"  Roger,  if,  with  thy  magic  glasses 
Kenning,  thou  seest  below  what  passes, 
As  when  on  earth  thou  didst  descry 
With  them  the  wonders  of  the  sky ; 
Look  down  on  your  devoted  walls, 
Oh,  save  them,  ere  thy  study  falls, 
Or  to  thy  votaries  quick  impart 
The  secret  of  thy  magic  art ; 
Teach  us,  ere  learning 's  quite  forsaken, 
To  honor  thee  and  —  save  our  Bacon." 

The  past  has  an  irresistible  charm.  Its  de 
fects  are  hidden  by  a  poetic  haze.  It  is  certain, 
however,  that  mediaeval  Oxford  could  not  have 
been  very  inviting.  The  streets  were  unpaved 
and  almost  unlighted.  The  ways  were  narrow 
and  the  traffic  dangerous.  Candles  were  too 
costly  to  use,  and  men  could  not  read  by  rush 
lights.  In  consequence,  the  day  began  and 
ended  with  the  coming  and  going  of  the  sun. 
"There  was  an  absence  of  all  due  means  of 
cleanliness  and  health.  .  .  .  The  dining  halls 
were  strewn  with  rushes,  into  which  all  sorts  of 


104  OXFORD. 

nastiness  were  thrown.  After  about  a  fortnight 
they  became  unendurable ;  and  there  was,  or 
ought  to  have  been,  a  general  cleaning.  The 
sweating  sickness  of  Tudor  times,  like  other 
plagues,  was  largely  due  to  the  filthy  mode  of 
living."  l 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Oxford  was  scourged 
frequently  with  pestilence,  and  that  plays  were 
forbidden  as  attracting  crowds  who  spread  infec 
tion.  When  Edward  III.  was  a  prince  and  a 
pupil  in  Balliol  College,  Oxford,  he  was  attacked 
by  the  small-pox.  Doctor  Gaddesden  of  Merton 
College,  who  attended  him,  recommends  the  fol 
lowing  treatment :  "  Cause  the  whole  of  the 
body  of  your  patient  to  be  wrapped  in  red  scar 
let  cloth,  or  any  other  red  cloth.  Command 
everything  about  the  bed  to  be  made  red.  This 
is  an  excellent  cure."  Red,  as  resembling  the 
color  of  the  blood,  was  invested  with  high  cura 
tive  powers,  according  to  a  doctrine  of  analogies 
which  prescribed  eye-bright  for  diseases  of  the 
eye.  Bodily  ills  were  supposed  often  to  be  the 
result  of  daemonic  visitation,  and  to  call  for 
ecclesiastical  remedies.  Hence  the  favor  ac- 

1  Historic  Town  Series  :  Boase's  Oxford,  p.  60.     . 


OXFORD.  105 

corded  to  shrine,  miracle,  and  relic  cures.  St. 
Valentine  cured  epilepsy ;  St.  Gervasius,  rheu 
matism  ;  St.  Judas,  coughs ;  St.  Ovidius,  deaf 
ness  ;  St.  Hubert,  hydrophobia.  One  method 
of  expelling  the  daemons  was  to  make  the  human 
body  uninhabitable  by  the  taking  of  loathsome 
mixtures,  such  as  garlic,  fennel,  livers  of  toads, 
blood  of  rats,  fibres  of  the  hangman's  rope,  etc. 
But  generally  material  remedies  were  disap 
proved  by  the  church.  Three  councils  in  the 
twelfth  century  warned  churchmen  against  hav 
ing  anything  to  do  with  the  profession  of  medi 
cine,  and  in  the  thirteenth  century  Pope  Innocent 
III.  commanded  physicians  to  call  in  ecclesias 
tical  advice  in  all  cases.  The  University  of 
Salernum  was  regarded  with  suspicion,  although 
even  there  saintly  relics  as  well  as  medicine 
were  relied  upon  to  heal  the  sick.  It  was  the 
age  of  magic.  The  doctrine  of  resurrection  for 
bade  dissection,  and  surgery  was  impious  as 
involving  bodily  dismemberment.  In  Oxford, 
so  late  as  the  time  of  James  II.,  many  people 
were  touched  for  the  king's  evil ;  but  it  is 
pleasant  to  record  that,  long  before,  the  hard- 
headed  Queen  Elizabeth  was  skeptical  as  to  the 


IO6  OXFORD. 

efficacy  of  her  powers,  despite  fervid  assurances 
given  to  her  by  her  chaplain.  Charles  II.,  it  is 
said,  touched  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  per 
sons. 

In  the  fourteenth  century  there  appeared  in 
Oxford  a  man  who  was  to  take  up  the  work  of 
Ockham  and  Bacon,  and  to  earn  for  himself  the 
proud  distinction  of  the  first  Protestant,  —  John 
Wycliffe.  He  attacked  the  citadel  of  ecclesias- 
ticism  itself.  He  proclaimed  the  innocemce  of 
honest  error;  he  denied  the  headship  of  the 
Roman  Church,  the  supremacy  of  St.  Peter  as 
compared  with  the  other  apostles,  and  the  tem 
poral  sovereignty  of  the  Pope.  He  disliked  the 
friars,  because,  he  said,  they  were  the  emissaries 
of  a  power  across  the  seas;  and  he  mocked 
their  gluttony  by  establishing  a  fraternity  of 
poor  priests,  who  went  everywhere  to  preach 
and  to  pray  among  the  lowly.  It  would  proba 
bly  have  gone  hardly  with  Wycliffe,  had  not  the 
church  at  this  time  made  a  demand  for  the 
papal  tribute,  which  had  been  in  arrears  for 
thirty-three  years.  This  demand  the  king  and 
Parliament  refused  to  meet,  and  Wycliffe  was 
asked  to  publicly  defend  the  position  taken.  He 


OXFORD. 

maintained  the  supremacy  of  the  king  and  Par 
liament  over  ecclesiastics  as  well  as  civilians,  — 
a  revolutionary  doctrine  which  gained  wide  sup 
port  by  reason  of  a  well-founded  belief  that  the 
papacy  at  Avignon  was  aiding  the  French  king 
in  his  wars  against  England  with  money  sup 
plied  by  the  English  people.  Wycliffe  thus  be 
came  the  embodiment  of  nationalism. 

Afterwards,  he  denounced  transubstantiation, 
thereby  strengthening  his  argument,  as  it  was 
the  administration  of  the  sacrament  that  ele 
vated  the  poorest  priest  above  the  crowned 
head.  The  church  repeatedly  demanded  that 
the  University  of  Oxford  should  condemn  Wyc- 
liffe's  tenets,  and  even  to  surrender  his  body  ; 
but  this  demand  was  steadily  refused.  The 
great  university  made  noble  answer  through  its 
head,  Chancellor  Rugg§ :  "  No  bishop  or  arch 
bishop  has  any  authority  whatever  over  the  uni 
versity. in  matters  of  belief."  Oxford  became  a 
"  nest  of  heretics."  Ultimately,  Wycliffe  lost 
power  with  the  state,  when  his  movement  as 
sumed  a  political  character.  Wat  Tyler's  up 
rising  was  attributed  to  him  ;  and  the  univer 
sity,  on  pain  of  forfeiture  of  all  liberties  and 


108  OXFORD. 

privileges,  yielded  to  a  command  to  displace  its 
obnoxious  chancellor  and  proctors.  This  con 
cession  served  as  an  evil  precedent.  Even 
Lincoln  College  was  founded  by  the  bishop  of 
the  diocese,  as  "  a  little  college  of  theologians  to 
help  in  ruining  heresy."  In  the  course  of  time 
Jesus  College  was  instituted  by  Hugh  Price,  to 
counteract  the  influence  of  Lincoln,  for  thus  did 
opinion  play  at  see-saw  in  Oxford.1  Renewed 
commissions  failed  to  extirpate  heresy  in  the 
university,  which  was  covert  and  stubborn.  The 
mendicant  order  established  by  Wycliffe  grew 
formidable,  was  persecuted,  and  was  almost  ex 
tinguished,  although,  after  the  passing  of  a  cen 
tury,  we  hear  Erasmus  ironically  expressing  the 
hope  that  either  "  Lollardism  or  persecution 
would  stop  before  winter,  for  it  raised  the  price 

1  Concerning  the  founder  of  ^esus  College  there  is  this  epi 
gram  :  — 

"  Hugo  Preesh 

Built  this  Collesh 
For  Jesus  Creesh 
And  the  Welsh  Geesh 
Who  love  a  peesch 
Of  toasted  cheesh 
And  here  it  ish." 

Moore's  Historical  Handbook,  p.  48.     A  book  full  of  curious 
matter. 


OXFORD. 

of  fire-wood."  Despite  papal  bulls  and  anathe 
mas,  Wycliffe  died  in  his  bed  ;  but  after  his 
bones  had  rested  thirty  years  in  their  grave, 
they  were  exhumed  by  order  of  the  Council  of 
Constance,  and  burnt.  They  were  burnt  too 
late !  The  ashes  were  "  cast  into  the  brook, 
whence,"  his  followers  said,  "  they  reached  the 
sea,  and  thus  the  whole  world  became  his  sepul 
chre."  And  it  was  so.  His  writings  were  car 
ried  by  wandering  students  over  all  Europe,  and 
led  to  the  Hussite  revolt  in  .Bohemia,  the  pre 
lude  to  the  Reformation.  The  crowning  achieve 
ment  of  Wycliffe's  life  was  his  translation  of 
the  Vulgate  into  language  which  the  people 
spoke  and  understood.  Abandoning  the  scho 
lastic  Latin,  he  became  the  father  of  English 
prose,  even  as  Chaucer,  his  contemporary,  be 
came  the  father  of  English  poetry.  Until  Wyc 
liffe's  time  French  was  the  language  of  fashion 
and  of  the  law  ;  and  we  find  a  statute  of  Oriel 
College,  Oxford,  as  late  as  1325,  enjoining  the 
students  to  speak  in  Latin  or  in  French.  Nev 
ertheless,  Oxford  had  much  to  do  with  forming 
English  prose.  Wycliffe's  successor,  William 
Tyndale,  who  published  a  translation  of  the 


HO  OXFORD. 

New  Testament  and  of  the  Pentateuch  in  1526, 
studied  in  Magdalen  Hall  (afterwards  Hertford 
College).  His  translation,  and  that  of  Wycliffe, 
"the  common  ancestor  "  of  all  English  editions, 
were  largely  the  basis  of  the  King  James  ver 
sion,  the  making  of  which  was  suggested  by 
an  Oxonian.  To  the  committee  who  translated 
the  King  James  version,  Oxford  contributed 
fourteen  members,  and  in  the  revision  made 
recently  the  university  was  also  represented. 

But  the  path  of  the  new  learning  was  rugged, 
and  was  weirdly  lighted  by  the  flames  of  living 
funeral  pyres.  William  Tyndale  was  tried  for 
heresy,  and  strangled,  his  body  being  given  to 
the  fire.  And  other  punishments  less  merciful 
were  employed.  Campanella  was  imprisoned 
twenty-seven  years,  and  seven  times  put  to  the 
torture.  "  Free  thought  was  a  crime,"  but  not 
for  always.  It  is  the  pride  of  Oxford  to  have 
nurtured  some  of  those  brave  spirits  who  fur 
thered  that  great  intellectual  renaissance,  the  Prot 
estant  Reformation,  a  movement  which  wrought 
among  other  things  the  reform  of  the  Catholic 
Church  itself.  Grocyn,  Linacre,  and  Colet,  Ox 
ford  students,  had  drunk  thirstily  at  the  foun- 


OXFORD.  1 1 1 

tains  of  the  new  learning  in  Italy  during  the  era 
of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  and  upon  their 
return  to  Oxford  they  revived  the  study  of  the 
Greek  language  and  literature,  and  sounded  the 
note  of  religious  reformation.  Colet,  ignoring 
the  schoolmen,  invested  the  Scriptures  with  a 
new  meaning,  giving  to  them  a  plain,  common- 
sense  interpretation.  Deeply  impressed  with 
the  iniquities  which  he  saw  at  Rome,  he  de 
nounced  the  Pope  as  "  wickedly  distilling  poison 
to  the  destruction  of  the  church,"  and  demanded 
a  purification  of  the  whole  clerical  system.  He 
gained  two  notable  disciples  and  associates, 
Thomas  More  and  Erasmus.  This  remarkable 
group  may  be  described  in  Erasmus'  own  words  : 
"When  I  listen  to  my  friend  Colet,  it  seems  to 
me  like  listening  to  Plato  himself.  In  Grocyn, 
who  does  not  admire  the  wide  range  of  his 
knowledge  ?  What  could  be  more  searching, 
deep,  and  refined  than  the  judgment  of  Linacre  ? 
Whenever  did  nature  mould  a  character  more 
gentle,  endearing,  and  happy  than  Thomas 
More's  ? "  Erasmus  went  from  Oxford  to  Italy 
to  study  Greek,  and  thus  to  prepare  himself  for 
his  great  work.  When  he  came  back  to  Eng- 


112  OXFORD. 

land,  he  published  his  "  Praise  of  Folly,"  a  sting 
ing  satire  on  the  clergy,  which  he  wrote  in 
More's  house  in  London ;  and  his  transition 
of  the  Greek  Testament,  done  in  Cambridge, 
in  which  the  Latin  and  Greek  texts  were  ar 
ranged  in  parallel  columns.  These  works  cre 
ated  a  great  sensation  throughout  Europe,  the 
latter  having  far-reaching  consequences.  The 
translation  was  read  by  Luther,  and  elicited  a 
tribute  of  admiration  from  Melancthon.  It  un 
dermined  the  belief  in  the  absolute  inspiration 
of  the  Vulgate  version  of  the  Bible,  and  thereby 
shook  the  authority  of  the  church.  Colet  went 
to  London,  where  he  was  made  Dean  of  St. 
Paul's,  and  where  he  taught  the  new  learning 
in  a  school  which  he  founded.  Sir  Thomas 
More  preached  democracy  and  religious  toler 
ation  in  his  "  Utopia."  When  the  papal  bull 
denouncing  Luther  reached  Germany,  and  the 
Elector  of  Saxony  was  ordered  to  surrender  the 
heretic,  the  elector  took  counsel  of  Erasmus, 
asking  him  what  he  really  thought  of  Luther. 
Erasmus  laconically  summed  up  the  situation 
thus :  "  Luther,"  he  said,  "  has  committed  two 
crimes.  He  has  hit  the  Pope  on  the  crown  and 


OXFORD.  113 

the  monks  on  the  belly."  The  elector  did  not 
deliver  up  Luther,  and  Luther  burned  the  bull. 
The  Oxford  and  the  Wittenberg  reformers  were 
helpmeets,  their  point  of  agreement  being  the 
need  of  the  immediate  reformation  of  the 
church.  But  in  other  respects  their  differences 
were  radical.  Oxford,  as  Mr.  Seebohm  points 
out  in  his  charming  book,  was  far  in  advance  of 
Wittenberg.  Luther  was  a  lineal  descendant  of 
the  schoolmen,  Wy cliff e  and  Huss,  and,  in  ac 
cepting  their  Augustinianism,  he  adhered  to  the 
scholastic  or  dogmatic  system  of  theology.  The 
basis  of  this  theology  was,  first,  "the  plenary 
inspiration  of  each  text  contained  in  the  Scrip 
tures  ;  and,  secondly,  the  existence  of  an  ecclesi 
astical  authority  of  some  kind  capable  of  estab 
lishing  theological  hypotheses;  so  that,  in  this 
respect,  Luther  and  other  Augustinian  reform 
ers,  instead  of  advancing  beyond  the  Oxford 
reformers,  have  lagged  far  behind."  The  re 
sult  was,  that  "  the  Protestant  movement,  whilst 
accomplishing  by  one  revolutionary  blow  many 
objects  which  the  Oxford  reformers  were  striv 
ing,  and  striving  in  vain,  to  compass  by  constitu 
tional  means,  has  been  so  far  antagonistic  to 


114  OXFORD. 

their  work  in  other  directions  as  to  throw  it  back, 
—  not  to  say  to  wipe  it  out  of  remembrance,  — 
so  that  in  this  nineteeth  century  those  Chris 
tians  who  have  desired,  as  they  did,  to  rest  their 
faith  upon  honest  facts  and  not  upon  dogmas, 
upon  evidence  and  not  upon  authority,  instead 
of  taking  up  the  work  where  the  Oxford  re 
formers  left  it,  have  had  to  begin  it  again  at  the 
beginning,  as  Colet  did  at  Oxford  in  1496.  They 
have  had,  like  the  Oxford  reformers,  to  combat 
at  the  outset  the  theory  of  'plenary  inspiration,' 
and  the  tendency  inherited  along  with  it  from 
St.  Augustine,  by  both  schoolmen  and  Protes 
tant  reformers,  to  build  up  a  theology,  as  I  have 
said,  upon  unverified  hypotheses,  and  to  narrow 
the  boundaries  of  Christian  fellowship  by  the  im 
position  of  dogmatic  creeds  so  manufactured."  1 
The  diffusion  of  secular  learning  went  on  apace, 
and  the  gulf  between  the  old  and  the  new  wid 
ened.  Hebrew  and  Greek  were  denounced  by 
churchmen  as  heretical  tongues,  and  in  Oxford 
two  parties  were  formed,  the  Greeks  and  the 
Trojans.  The  enmity  of  the  conservatives  was 
bitter,  as  Vives  testifies.  He  was  invited  from 

1  Seebohm's  Oxford  Reformers,  pp.  494,  496,  497. 


OXFORD.  1 1 5 

Spain  to  teach  Greek  in  Corpus  Christi,  a  col 
lege  which  was  the  first  fruit  of  the  classical  re 
vival.  He  says,  "  I  must  take  care  of  my  health, 
especially  here,  where,  if  I  were  to  fall  ill,  I 
should  be  cast  out  upon  a  dung-hill,  and  where 
there  would  be  no  one  who  would  regard  me 
better  than  a  vile,  diseased  dog." 

Later  in  the  century  another  and  greater 
critic  of  Aristotelianism,  Giordano  Bruno,  came 
to  Oxford  to  take  part  in  a  dialectical  tourna 
ment,  which  was  one  of  the  features  of  a  fete 
given  by  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  Chancellor  of  the 
University,  to  the  County  Palatine,  Albert  de 
Lasco ;  for  such  was  the  manner  of  the  time. 
Bruno  claims  that  he  stopped  the  mouth  of  his 
adversary  fifteen  times  ;  it  is  certain  that  he 
gave  great  offense  by  his  arrogance.  After 
wards,  while  delivering  a  course  of  lectures,  he 
was  indiscreet  enough  to  deride  the  authorities, 
and  to  style  them  "  a  constellation  of  pedants," 
which  put  an  end  to  his  connection  with  the 
university.  Aristotelianism  was  statutory  at 
Oxford,  as  it  was  in  the  University  of  Paris 
and  in  the  church.  The  universe  was  a  closed 
sphere,  with  an  immobile  earth  as  its  centre. 


Ii6  OXFORD. 

Bruno  declared  that  there  was  an  infinity  of 
worlds.  He  asserted  also  the  diurnal  revolution 
of  the  earth.  Copernicus,  Bruno,  Galileo,  Kep 
ler,  and  Newton  are  the  order  of  a  noble  pro 
gression,  and  the  issue  presented  by  them  was 
momentous.  The  establishment  of  the  helio 
centric  doctrine  was  a  cataclysm  of  thought.  It 
dethroned  man  as  the  sovereign  of  created 
things.  The  stars  in  their  beauty  were  not 
made  to  give  him  light.  His  world  was  but  a 
point  in  the  infinite  ;  it  was  a  satellite,  and  not 
a  sun.  All  this  involved  a  denial  of  the  infalli 
bility  of  the  church,  the  overshadowing  power  of 
Christendom,  and  the  assertion  of  the  supremacy 
of  human  reason.  Galileo  was  compelled  to 
bend  his  knees  before  the  cardinals,  and  to  curse 
and  to  abjure  the  heliocentric  doctrine ;  Bru 
no's  free  spirit  went  up  in  flame.  But  persecu 
tion  was  not  wholly  Catholic.  Oxford  suffered 
sadly  during  the  whole  period  of  religious  refor 
mation.  A  visitation  instituted  by  Henry  VIII., 
a  too  zealous  convert  to  the  new  learning,  sup 
pressed  the  study  of  the  canon  law,  and  scat 
tered  the  leaves  of  the  scholastic  writings  about 
the  quadrangles.  "  Dunce  "  (Duns  Scotus)  was 


OXFORD.  1 1 7 

"set  in  Bocardo  "  (as  the  saying  went),  a  prison 
which  surmounted  the  north  gate  of  the  town. 
Mr.  Boase  ingeniously  suggests  that  the  sin 
gular  name  of  this  place  of  confinement  may 
have  been  adapted  sarcastically  from  the  "  syl 
logism  called  Bocardo,  out  of  which  the  reasoner 
could  not  '  bring  himself  back  into  his  first  fig 
ure  '  without  the  use  of  special  processes."  In 
the  reign  of  Edward  VI.  religious  reformation 
almost  emptied  the  university.  There  were  two 
visitations,  and  "  not  only  were  the  old  services 
abolished,  but  altars,  images,  statues,  '  the  things 
called  organs/  and  everything  else  which  seemed 
to  savour  of  '  superstition,'  were  defaced  or  swept 
away.  ...  *  Cartloads '  of  classical  and  scien 
tific  manuscripts  were  consigned  to  the  flames, 
together  with  many  an  illuminated  masterpiece 
of  scholastic  literature."  l 

Under  Mary  there  was  burning  of  bodies  as 
well  as  of  books.  Opposite  Balliol  College,  of 
which  at  one  time  Wycliffe  was  the  head,  stands 
a  memorial  to  the  Protestant  martyrs,  Cranmer, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  Bishops  Latimer 

1  G.  C.  Brodrick,  Warden  of  Merton,  A  History  of  the  Uni 
versity  of  Oxford,  p.  8 1. 


1 1 8  OXFORD. 

and  Ridley,  who  were  burned  in  Bloody  Mary's 
reign  near  this  spot.  Latiraer  and  Ridley  stood 
side  by  side  in  death,  and,  as  the  flames 
mounted,  Latimer  spake  in  these  words  :  "  Be 
of  good  comfort,  Master  Ridley,  and  play  the 
man.  We  shall  this  day  light  such  a  candle  by 
God's  grace  in  England  as  I  trust  shall  never 
be  put  out."  Cranmer  witnessed  the  execution 
from  Bocardo,  and  perished  six  months  later  at 
the  same  stake.  "  Fire  being  now  put  to  him, 
he  stretched  out  his  right  hand  and  thrust  it 
into  the  flame,  and  held  it  there  a  good  space, 
before  the  fire  came  to  any  other  part  of  his 
body ;  where  his  hand  was  seen  of  every  man 
sensibly  burning,  crying  with  a  loud  voice,  '  This 
hand  hath  offended.'  As  soon  as  the  fire  got 
up,  he  was  very  soon  dead,  never  stirring  nor 
crying  all  the  while." 

The  present  generation  may  be  interested  in 
knowing  what  it  cost  to  burn  a  good  man,  or 
several  of  them  :  — 

"  For  three  loads  of  wood  fagots,  125. 
"  Item,  one  load  of  furze  fagots,  35.  4d. 
"  For  the  carriage  of  these  four  loads,  23. 
"  Item,  A  post,  is.  4d. 


OXFORD.  119 

"  Item,  Two  chains,  33.  4d. 
"  Item,  Two  staples,  6*d. 
"  Item,  Four  laborers,  25.  8d. 

"  Total  cost  of  burning  Ridley  and  Latimer,  i 
pound,  55.  2d." 

The  cost  of  burning  Cranmer  was  eleven 
shillings,  four  pence. 

Elizabeth  ordered  a  "mild  and  gentle,  not 
rigorous  reformation  "  of  the  university.  She, 
who  disprized  "  logical  conclusions,"  and  who 
always  steered  a  middle  course,  counseled  the 
doctors  to  be  moderate  in  their  Protestantism. 
It  was  during  her  reign  that  Oxford  received  its 
best  gift,  the  Bodleian  Library,  which  is  now  so 
rich  in  manuscripts,  and  which  is  so  dear  to  all 
the  lovers  of  lore. 

But,  in  another  particular,  Elizabeth's  time  was 
less  benignant.  The  heaviest  blow  dealt  to  Ox 
ford  came  from  her  favorite,  the  Earl  of  Leices 
ter,  whose  chancellorship  has  been  referred  to. 
He  it  was  who  shut  the  gates  of  that  place  of 
learning  in  the  face  of  all  who  would  not  sub 
scribe  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  and  to  the  Act 
of  Supremacy.  This  proscription,  which  was  di 
rected  solely  against  Catholics,  afterwards  came 


1 2O  OXFORD. 

to  include  Puritans  and  Wesleyans ;  in  fact,  all 
forms  of  dissent.  Oxford  thus  contracted  into 
a  Church  of  England  institution,  resembling  in 
some  respects  a  theological  seminary,  and  ceased 
to  be  a  university.  The  splendid  title  then  lost 
was  not  regained  until  the  present  century, 
when,  in  these  knowing  and  denying  days,  the 
walls  of  a  Unitarian  college  are  rearing  them 
selves  in  the  very  shadows  of  old  and  frowning 
ecclesiastical  halls. 

History  has  dealt  hardly  with  Leicester's 
name  in  other  matters,  and  less  justly.  He  is 
linked  forever,  and  in  an  ignoble  way,  with  the 
fate  of  Amy  Robsart,  who  lived  and  died  at 
Cumnor  Hall,  three  miles  southeast  of  Oxford. 
Romance  would  seem  to  be  alien  to  the  home 
of  monasticism,  and  yet  Scott's  unfortunate 
heroine  is  buried  in  the  university  church.  A 
very  illegible  manuscript  in  the  Bodleian  gives 
an  account  of  her  funeral.  There  was  a  great 
procession.  "  The  pore  men  and  women  in 
gownes  .  .  .  the  universities,  two  and  two  to 
gether  accordinge  to  the  degres  of  the  colleges, 
and  before  every  house  ther  officers  with  their 
staves  .  .  .  the  quere  in  surplesses  singinge, 


OXFORD.  121 

and  after  them  the  minestar  .  .  .  the  corpes 
borne  by  eight  yoemen  for  the  way  was  farre." 
The  body  was  placed  on  the  hearse,  and  on 
"eche  syde  of  the  hersse  stod  two  gentlemen 
holdinge  the  banneroles,  and  at  the  feet  stood 
he  that  held  the  great  banner."  l 

Scott,  we  are  assured,  was  misled  by  the  mis 
take  of  the  nervous  Doctor  Babbington,  who 
preached  the  funeral  sermon.  Thrice  did  he 
recommend  to  men's  memory  that  virtuous  lady 
so  pitifully  "murdered,"  instead  of  saying  so 
pitifully  "  slain,"  —  a  difference  somewhat  occult. 
Later  investigations  show  that  the  marriage  of 
Amy  Robsart  and  Robert  Dudley  was  not  secret, 
but  was  conducted  in  the  presence  of  Edward 
VI.  She  died  in  1560,  although  Scott  represents 
her  as  an  inmate  of  Kenilworth,  during  Eliza 
beth's  visit,  fifteen  years  later.  It  appears  also 
that  at  her  death  Robert  Dudley  persistently 
demanded  an  inquest ;  that  a  jury  was  impan 
eled,  every  man  of  whom  was  a  stranger  to  him, 
and  that  they  rendered  a  verdict  of  accidental 
death. 

The  exterior  of  St.  Mary's  Church,  the  tomb 

Moore's  Historical  Handbook,  p.  47. 


122  OXFORD. 

of  Amy  Robsart,  is  richly  ornamented,  and  there 
arises  a  pinnacled  spire  which  is  a  marvel  of 
airiness  and  grace.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  this 
edifice  had  served  as  the  great  hall  of  the  uni 
versity,  as  its  seat  of  justice,  of  legislation,  of 
examination,  and  of  worship.  It  fronts  on  High 
Street,  a  thoroughfare  said  to  be  one  of  the 
finest  in  Great  Britain.  Wordsworth  speaks 
of  the  "streamlike  windings  of  that  glorious 
street,"  which,  lined  with  stately  colleges,  is 
terminated  in  Magdalen  bridge,  a  beautiful 
stone  structure  that  spans  the  Cherwell.  Over 
this  bridge  came  the  coaches  from  London  in 
the  olden  days,  laden  with  students,  who  greeted 
their  Alma  Mater  with  the  musical  post-horn. 
At  the  end  of  the  bridge,  Magdalen  tower  shoots 
up,  a  lofty  structure,  famous  for  the  beauty  of 
its  proportions,  and  under  it  nestles  Magdalen 
College,  founded  in  the  fifteenth  century  by 
William  of  Waynflete,  Bishop  of  Winchester, 
and  Lord  High  Chancellor. 

The  encompassing  gardens  form  a  fit  setting 
for  this  gem ;  and  they  are  famous  as  well,  for 
here,  beneath  the  elms,  Addison  was  "steep 
ing  himself  in  the  Latin  poets  and  tagging 


OXFORD.  123 

Latin  verses  "  during  ten  years.  His  "  walk  "  is 
probably  the  most  observed  spot  in  Oxford. 
It  is  easy  to  understand  the  inspiration  which 
he  drew  from  the  place.  The  gardens  from  his 
time  have  been  inclosed  with  a  defensive  wall. 
Part  of  them  are  used  as  a  deer  park  now. 
What  with  the  flowing  waters,  the  ancient  trees, 
the  shaded  walks,  the  cool  cloisters,  the  curious 
quadrangles,  and  the  quaint  carvings,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  sweet  serenity  of  the  college 
of  "  Seinte  Marie  Maugdalene "  should  be  re 
flected  in  the  character  and  writings  of  the  great 
essayist. 

In  1649, tne  head  of  Magdalen  College  invited 
Cromwell  and  Fairfax  to  dine  with  him ;  and  it 
is  said  that,  in  return  for  this  hospitality,  his 
guests  appropriated  the  organ  in  the  chapel,  and 
had  it  conveyed  to  Hampton  Court,  and  that 
their  followers  broke  the  painted  glass  out  of 
the  windows,  and  trampled  it  under  foot.  The 
Puritans  had  a  fashion  of  whitewashing  the  walls 
of  all  chapels  that  were  decorated.  They  knew 
no  more  and  cared  no  more  about  art  than 
Biagio,  who  remonstrated  with  Paul  III.  con 
cerning  Michael  Angelo's  picture  of  the  Last 


1 24  OXFORD. 

Judgment.  He  complained  that  the  nudity  of 
the  figures  was  inappropriate  to  the  Sistine 
Chapel.  Michael  Angelo,  the  "baptized  Phi 
dias,"  took  his  revenge  by  putting  Biagio  in 
hell,  and  by  giving  him  the  ears  of  an  ass  ;  and 
there  he  is  to  this  day.  Fortunate  Puritan 
Fathers ! 

It  was  the  Cavaliers,  however,  and  not  the 
Roundheads,  who  played  havoc  with  Oxford. 
When  King  Charles  occupied  the  town,  they 
used  the  cloisters  and  schools  as  magazines  and 
granaries,  and  the  colleges  as  barracks.  The 
functions  of  the  university  were  practically  sus 
pended.  With  the  supremacy  of  the  Puritans, 
Cromwell  became  chancellor  of  the  university, 
and,  despite  the  ungracious  act  here  before 
mentioned,  he  proved  to  be  a  kindly  patron  of 
learning,  he  himself  having  been  a  student  at 
Cambridge.  There  was,  of  course,  the  usual 
visitation,  which  was  followed,  at  the  Restora 
tion,  by  another. 

After  the  revolution,  as  before,  royalty  so 
journed  at  Oxford  ;  but  more  frequently  in  the 
earlier  centuries,  when  Woodstock  was  a  royal 
palace.  The  comings  of  the  sovereigns  were  al- 


OXFORD.  125 

ways  festal  occasions.  Anthony  Wood  gravely 
informs  us  that,  with  the  visit  of  James  I.  and 
his  court  in  1603,  the  students  became  dissi 
pated,  and  that  there  was  much  drunkenness, 
a  statement  calculated  to  leave  upon  the  un 
guarded  mind  the  inference  that  prior  to  that 
time  Oxford  had  been  very  exemplary  indeed. 
It  is  difficult  to  believe  so  well  of  its  early  days. 
Certainly  the  traditions  are  against  it,  if  we  are 
to  accept  as  descriptive  a  bacchanalian  note 
uttered  in  the  long  ago  by  Walter  Mapes,  Arch 
deacon  of  Oxford.  The  verses,  delightfully  para 
phrased  by  Leigh  Hunt,  run  in  this  wise  :  — 

"  Mihi  est  propositum  in  taberna  mori, 
Vinum  sit  appositum  morientis  ori, 
Ut  dicant,  cum  venerint  angelorum  chori ; 
'  Deus  sit  propitius  huic  potatori.' 

"  Poculis  accendentur  animi  lucerna ; 
Cor  inbutum  nectare  volat  ad  superna  ; 
Mihi  sapit  dulcius  vinum  in  taberna, 
Quam  quod  aqua  miscuit  prassulis  pincerna. 

"  Suum  cuique  proprium  dat  natura  munus, 
Ego  nunquam  potui  scribere  jejunus ; 
Ne  jejunum  vincere  posset  puer  unus  ; 
Sitim  et  jejunium  odi  tanquam  funus. 


126  OXFORD. 

"  Tales  versus  facio  quale  vinum  bibo, 
Non  possum  scribere  nisi  sumpto  cibo  ; 
Nihil  valet  penitus  quod  jejunus  scribo, 
Nasonem  post  calices  facile  praeibo. 

"  Mihi  nunquam  spiritus  prophetiae  datur, 
Nisi  cum  f uerit  venter  bene  satur ; 
Cum  in  acre  cerebri  Bacchus  dominatur, 
In  me  Phoebus  irruit  ac  miranda  fatur." 

"  I  devise  to  end  my  days  —  in  a  tavern  drinking ; 

May  some  Christian  hold  for  me  —  the  glass  when  I  am  shrink 
ing  ; 

That  the  cherubim  may  cry  —  when  they  see  me  sinking, 

God  be  merciful  to  a  soul  —  of  this  gentleman's  way  of  think 
ing. 

"  A  glass  of  wine  amazingly  —  enlighteneth  one's  internals ; 
'T  is  wings  bedewed  with  nectar  —  that  fly  up  to  supernals ; 
Bottles  cracked  in  taverns  —  have  much  the  sweeter  kernels, 
Than  the  sups  allowed  to  us  —  in  the  college  journals. 

"  Every  one  by  nature  hath  —  a  mould  which  he  was  cast  in  : 
I  happen  to  be  one  of  those  —  who  never  could  write  fasting ; 
By  a  single  little  boy  —  I  should  be  surpass'd  in 
Writing  so  :  I  'd  just  as  lief —  be  buried,  tomb'd  and  grass'd  in. 

"  Every  one  by  nature  hath  —  a  gift,  too,  a  dotation ; 
I,  when  I  make  verses,  —  do  get  the  inspiration 
Of  the  very  best  wine  —  that  comes  into  the  nation  ; 
It  maketh  sermons  to  abound  —  for  edification. 


OXFORD.  127 

"  Just  as  liquor  floweth  good  —  floweth  forth  my  lay  so ; 
But  I  must  moreover  eat  —  or  I  could  not  say  so ; 
Nought  it  availeth  inwardly  —  should  I  write  all  day  so ; 
But  with  God's  grace  after  meat  —  I  beat  Ovidius  Naso. 

"  Neither  is  there  given  to  me  —  prophetic  animation, 
Unless  when  I  have  eat  and  drank  —  yea,  ev'n  to  saturation 
Then  in  my  upper  story  —  hath  Bacchus  domination, 
And  Phoebus  rusheth  into  me  —  and  beggareth  all  relation." 

It  was  a  merry  Oxford  indeed,  then  and  after 
wards  ;  and  good  stories  of  its  conviviality  are 
not  lacking.  Humphrey  Prideaux,  an  annalist 
of  the  university,  and  contemporary  of  Anthony 
Wood,  tells  us  that  there  was  once  "  a  dingy, 
horrid,  scandalous  ale-house  "  over  against  Bal- 
liol  College,  where  a  "  hellish  liquor  cald  ale " 
was  sold,  for  which  the  fellows  of  Balliol  had 
a  liking.  Thomas  Good,  master  of  Balliol,  pro 
tested  vigorously  against  this  "  perpetuall  bubbe- 
ing;"  and  was  informed  by  one  who  was  "not 
willing  soe  tamely  to  be  preached  out  of  his 
beloved  liquor,"  that  the  "  vice-chancellor's  men 
also  drink  ale  at  the  Split  Crow.  .  .  .  The 
old  man  being  nonplussed  with  this  reply  im 
mediately  packeth  off  to  the  vice-chancelour, 
who  .  .  .  was  an  old  lover  of  ale  himselfe,  and 


128  OXFORD. 

who  answared  him  roughly,  that  there  was  nqe 
hurt  in  ale."  Thereupon  the  master  of  Balliol 
returned  to  his  college,  called  the  fellows  to 
gether  again,  and  told  them  that  as  he  had  been 
assured  that  there  was  no  hurt  in  ale,  they  all 
might  now  be  "sots  by  authority." 

The  visits  of  Charles  II.  to  Oxford  did  not  pro 
mote  the  decorum  of  university  life,  although 
they  may  have  strengthened  the  authority  of  the 
Crown.  After  the  discovery  of  the  Rye  House 
plot  (1683),  the  university,  in  an  extraordinary 
fit  of  flunkeyism,  decreed  "  against  certain  perni 
cious  books  and  damnable  doctrines  destructive 
to  the  sacred  persons  of  Princes,  their  State  and 
Government,  and  of  all  Human  Society."  The 
decree  recited  twenty-seven  propositions  as  he 
retical,  and  condemned  the  books  which  con 
tained  and  expounded  them  "to  be  publicly 
burnt  by  the  hand  of  our  marshal  in  the  court 
of  our  schools."  An  examination  of  some  of 
the  propositions,  as  set  out  in  the  decree,  dis 
closes  that  it  was  the  books  and  not  the  doctrines 
which  were  destroyed  in  the  university  bonfire. 
The  first  three  propositions  are  as  follows  :  — 
"The  ist  proposition.  All  civil  authority  is 
derived  originally  from  the  people. 


OXFORD.  129 

"  2.  There  is  a  mutual  compact,  tacit  or  ex 
press,  between  a  prince  and  his  subjects,  that  if 
he  perform  not  his  duty,  they  are  discharged 
from  theirs. 

"  3.  That  if  lawful  governors  become  tyrants, 
or  govern  otherwise  than  by  the  laws  of  God 
and  man  they  ought  to  do,  they  forfeit  the  right 
they  had  unto  their  .government.  Lex  Rex; 
Buchanan,  de  Jure  Regni ;  Vindiciae  contra 
tyrannos  ;  Bellarmine,  de  Conciliis,  de  Pontifice ; 
Milton  ;  Goodwin  ;  Baxter ;  H.  C." 

In  solemn  reprobation  of  these  "false,  sedi 
tious,  and  impious  "  propositions,  the  university 
proclaimed  the  doctrine  of  Divine  Right,  and  en 
joined  passive  obedience  upon  all  persons  sub 
ject  to  its  authority.  It  was  soon  to  taste  the 
fruits  of  this  servility. 

James  II.  came  to  Oxford  in  an  ugly  mood.  Al 
though  he  had  no  legal  right  to  name  the  heads 
of  colleges,  he  endeavored  personally  to  coerce 
Magdalen  College  into  accepting  a  candidate  of 
his  choice.  His  first  nominee,  a  papist,  was  re 
jected  by  the  fellows  as  unfit  to  hold  the  office, 
and  another  man  was  elected.  James's  second 
nominee,  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  was  installed  by 


130  OXFORD. 

force  after  the  president  and  twenty-five  fellows 
had  been  ejected.  At  one  time  William  Penn 
visited  Oxford  as  a  mediator  between  the  king 
and  the  belligerent  institution.  The  founder  of 
Pennsylvania  was  not  unknown  to  the  univer 
sity,  whence  he  had  been  expelled  long  before 
for  participation  in  the  "  surplice  riot."  It 
seems  that  he  was  enrolled  in  Christ  Church 
during  the  Protectorate,  and  that  after  the  Res 
toration,  when  some  students  made  their  ap 
pearance  for  the  first  time  in  white  surplices, 
he  and  others  fell  upon  them  zealously,  and 
stripped  them  of  the  hated  garments.  Christ 
Church,  or  Cardinal  College,  Penn's  sometime 
collegiate  home,  is  the  most  splendid  founda 
tion  in  Oxford.  Founded  by  Wolsey,  it  was 
completed  by  Henry  VIII.,  who  diverted  to  its 
maintenance  the  revenues  of  twenty-two  priories 
and  convents  (themselves  suppressed).  It  occu 
pies  ground  sacred  in  pietistic  tradition.  Here 
rest  (supposedly)  the  bones  of  St.  Frideswide, 
a  maiden  of  the  eighth  century,  who  devoted 
herself  to  a  monastic  life.  Her  father  built  for 
her  upon  this  spot  a  conventual  church,  in  the 
tower  of  which  a  number  of  fugitive  Jews  and 


OXFORD.  I3I 

Danes  were  burned  shortly  after  the  Danish  in 
vasion.  In  architecture  Christ  Church  is  un 
surpassed.  The  present  college  consists  of  four 
quadrangles,  three  of  them  small,  and  one  very 
large  and  magnificent.  The  gateway  is  sur 
mounted  by  a  tower  (designed  by  Sir  Christo 
pher  Wren,  a  son  of  Oxford),  which  contains 
the  "  Great  Tom  "  bell,  the  thirty-first  in  size 
of  the  world.  Before  it  was  recast  in  1680,  it 
bore  the  following  inscription,  which  attests  the 
resonance  of  the  tone  and  the  soundness  of 
the  metal  :  — 

"  In  Thomas  laude  resono  Bim  Bom  sine  fraude." 

A  dean  of  Christ  Church  of  the  seventeenth 
century  extolled  the  bells  of  his  college  in  the 
following  verse :  — 

"  Hark  !  the  bonny  Christ  Church  bells,  — 
i,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,— 

They  sound  so  wondrous  great,  so  woundy  sweet, 
As  they  trowl  so  merrily,  merrily. 
Oh  !  the  first  and  second  bell, 
That  every  day,  at  four  and  ten,  cry, 
'  Come,  come,  come,  come  to  prayers  ! ' 
And  the  Verger  troops  before  the  Dean, 
Tinkle,  tinkle,  ting,  goes  the  small  bell  at  nine, 


132  OXFORD. 

To  call  the  bearers  home ; 
But  the  devil  a  man 
Will  leave  his  can 
Till  he  hears  the  mighty  Tom." 

Christ  Church  is  built  of  stone,  as,  indeed,  are 
all  the  colleges  of  Oxford,  save  one.  It  remained 
for  the  •  nineteenth  century  to  erect  a  structure 
of  red  and  yellow  brick.  The  beauties  of  Christ 
Church  are  many.  There  is  a  noble  Gothic  fane, 
and  a  refectory  whose  oak  roof  is  a  wonder. 
There  are  fretted  stone  ceilings  and  graceful 
springing  columns.  But  all  these  are  for  the 
pencil.  Christ  Church  has  a  great  human  in 
terest,  since  it  boasts  many  illustrious  names. 
Among  these  may  be  mentioned  rare  Ben  Jon- 
son,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  Richard  Hakluyt, 
the  stay-at-home  traveler,  "  whose  diction,"  says 
Lowell,  "  we  should  be  glad  to  buy  back  from 
desuetude  at  any  cost." 

In  the  hall  (the  seat  of  many  parliaments)  are 
some  noted  portraits,  and  among  them  one,  by 
Kneller,  of  John  Locke,  who  held  a  scholarship 
here  for  a  number  of  years.  Locke  was  expelled 
at  the  instigation  of  the  crown,  after  the  Convo 
cation  had  issued  the  celebrated  decree  of  1683. 


OXFORD.  133 

Owing  to  his  intimacy  with  the  Earl  of  Shaftes- 
bury,  and  to  his  retired  if  not  secretive  habits, 
he  was  accused  of  complicity  in  plots  against 
the  government  of  Charles  II.  We  can  only 
hope  that  the  charge  was  true.  If  Christ  Church 
had  an  intellectual  reformer  in  John  Locke,  it 
had  an  emotional  one  in  John  Wesley.  After 
graduation  Wesley  was  elected  a  Fellow  of  Lin 
coln  College,  and  was  appointed  Greek  lecturer. 
His  range  of  study  included  the  classics,  logic, 
ethics,  mathematics,  Hebrew,  Arabic,  metaphy 
sics,  natural  philosophy,  rhetoric,  poetry,  and 
divinity.  Methodism  originated  in  a  club  of 
which  he,  his  brother  Charles,  and  Whitefield 
were  members,  and  who  were  nicknamed  by  the 
Oxonians,  Bible  Bigots,  Bible  Moths,  Holy  Club, 
and,  at  last,  Methodists.  Whitefield,  in  his  de 
votional  ecstasies,  would  lie  on  the  ground  in 
Christ  Church,  on  winter  nights,  until  he  would 
almost  perish  from  cold.  John  Wesley  mixed 
a  little  in  politics.  Before  going  to  America, 
he  preached  in  St.  Mary's  Church  a  sermon  that 
"  smacked  of  treason,"  and  concerning  which  his 
brother  Charles  said  :  "  My  brother  has  been 
mauled,  and  threatened  more,  for  his  Jacobite 


134  OXFORD. 

sermon  in  St.  Mary's.  But  he  was  wise  enough 
to  get  the  vice-chancellor  to  read  and  approve  it 
before  he  preached  it,  and  may  therefore  bid 
Wadham,  Exeter,  and  Christ  Church  do  their 
worst,"  which,  it  must  be  said,  the  colleges  in 
Oxford  oftentimes  did.  At  one  time  Wesley 
thought  he  was  going  to  die,  and  so  composed 
his  own  epitaph  :  "  Here  lieth  the  body  of  John 
Wesley,  a  brand  plucked  out  of  the  burning, 
who  died  of  a  consumption  in  the  fifty-first  year 
of  his  age,  not  leaving,  after  his  debts  are  paid, 
ten  pounds  behind  him,  praying  God  to  be 
merciful  to  me,  an  unprofitable  servant." 

He  recovered,  and  lived  thirty-seven  years 
after,  and  evidently  to  some  purpose.  The 
Methodist  Club  of  fifteen  members  has  ex 
panded  into  a  church  of  twenty-five  millions. 
Methodism  also  possessed  political  consequence. 
The  eloquence  of  Wesley  and  Whitefield  at 
tracted  the  first  great  public  meetings  held  in 
England.  It  was  the  initial  exercise  of  the  art 
of  popular  persuasion.  These  novel  gatherings 
taught  the  multitude  their  right  to  assemble, 
and,  it  may  be,  discovered  to  them  their  equality 
of  condition,  their  community  of  interest,  and 


OXFORD.  135 

the  enormous  power  which  lay  stored  in  them 
as  "the  people."1  Contemporary  with  Wesley 
was  Berkeley,  who  is  buried  in  Christ  Church 
Cathedral,  and  Butler,  who  studied  in  Oriel  Col 
lege.  If  the  deistic  movement  in  England  may 
be  said  to  owe  its  origin  to  Locke,  and  therefore 
to  Christ  Church,  the  anti-deistic  movement 
may  also,  in  a  sense,  be  ascribed  to  Oriel.  In 
the  present  century,  Oriel  was  the  scene  of  yet 
another  religious  revival,  —  the  "  Oxford  Move 
ment."  Though  Catholic  in  its  tendencies, 
Tractarianism,  Puseyism,  or  Newmanism,  as  it 
was  differently  called,  had  a  vastly  invigorating 
effect  upon  the  Established  Church.  "  Forty 
years  ago,"  says  Matthew  Arnold,  "when  I  was 
an  undergraduate  at  Oxford,  voices  were  in  the 
air  there  which  haunt  my  memory  still.  .  .  .  He 
(Newman)  was  in  the  very  prime  of  life  ;  he  was 
close  at  hand  to  us  at  Oxford  ;  he  was  preaching 
in  St.  Mary's  pulpit  every  Sunday ;  he  seemed 
about  to  transform  and  to  renew  what  was  for 
us  the  most  national  and  natural  institution  in 
the  world,  the  Church  of  England.  Who  could 
resist  the  charm  of  that  spiritual  apparition, 

1  Henry  Jephson,  The  Platform  :  Its  Rise  and  Progress,  p.  4. 


1 36  OXFORD. 

gliding  in  the  dim  afternoon  light  through  the 
aisles  of  St.  Mary's,  rising  into  the  pulpit,  and 
then,  in  the  most  entrancing  of  voices,  breaking 
the  silence  with  words  and  thoughts  which  were 
a  religious  music,  —  subtile,  sweet,  mournful  ?  I 
seem  to  hear  him  still,  saying  :  '  After  the  fever 
of  life,  after  wearinesses  and  sicknesses,  fight 
ings  and  despondings,  languor  and  fretfulness, 
struggling  and  succeeding  ;  -  after  all  the  changes 
and  chances  of  this  troubled,  unhealthy  state,  - 
at  length  comes  death,  at  length  the  white  throne 
of  God,  at  length  the  beatific  vision.' ' 

Oxford  was  notoriously  high  church,  and  the 
Neo-Catholic  revival  more  nearly  accorded  with 
the  traditions  of  the  place  than  any  other  move 
ment  of  its  later  history.  Newman  severed  his 
connection  with  the  university  by  resignation, 
faring  better  in  this  respect  than  some  of  his 
gifted  predecessors.  Oxford  had  a  way  of  ex 
pelling  its  geniuses,  as  we  have  seen.  Gibbon 
went  to  Magdalen  College  "  with  a  stock  of  in 
formation  which  might  have  puzzled  a  doctor, 
and  a  degree  of  ignorance  of  which  a  school-boy 
might  be  ashamed."  The  fourteen  months 
which  he  spent  there  were,  he  said,  the  most 


OXFORD.  137 

idle  and  unprofitable  of  his  whole  life.  Perhaps 
the  mind  of  the  great  historian  —  the  conspicu 
ous  infidel  of  his  day  —  was  stirred  uneasily,  in 
after  years,  by  the  recollection  that  he  had  been 
expelled  from  Oxford  for  joining  the  Catholic 
Church.  Other  sons,  such  as  Dr.  Johnson,  of 
Pembroke,  whose  experiences,  though  different, 
were  less  pleasant,  had  kindlier  memories  of  the 
place.  In  the  present  century,  the  university 
sent  adrift  the  poet  Shelley,  one  of  the  marked 
individualities  of  his  time,  and  the  "  Pagan " 
Landor.  De  Quincey  (who,  by  the  way,  first 
tasted  opium  in  his  second  year  at  Oxford)  ex 
plains  that  Shelley  was  expelled,  not  for  compil 
ing  and  publishing  an  atheistical  or  deistical 
pamphlet,  but  for  his  ostentation  in  sending  a 
copy  of  the  pamphlet  to  each  of  the  dons,  which 
was  accounted  a  breach  of  discipline.  Walter 
Savage  Landor  was  dismissed  from  Trinity  Col 
lege  for  playfully  emptying  the  contents  of  a 
double-barreled  shotgun  into  the  windows  of  a 
man  living  upon  the  opposite  side  of  the  quad 
rangle,  of  whose  political  opinions  he  did  not  ap 
prove.  Although  the  shutters  were  closed,  and 
no  bodily  damage  was  done,  the  university  failed 


138  OXFORD. 

utterly  to  discover  in  this  impulsive  and  highly 
original  act  the  distinctive  poetic  temperament, 
and  so  Landor  was  "  sent  down,"  as  the  phrase 
runs. 

The  university  was  more  lenient  in  the  last 
half  of  the  last  century,  when  it  would  forgive 
almost  anything  but  religious  apostasy.  Tutors 
were  listless,  and  proctorial  authority  limp. 
"  The  fellows  of  Magdalen,"  says  Gibbon,  "were 
decent,  easy  men,  who  supinely  enjoyed  the  gifts 
of  the  founder.  .  .  .  From  the  toil  of  reading, 
or  thinking,  or  writing,  they  had  absolved  their 
consciences."  This  was  during  one  of  the 
periods  of  depression  which  marked  the  uni 
versity  life  from  time  to  time,  and  which  may 
be  partly  explained  by  the  fact  that  for  cen 
turies  the  university  had  been  subjected  to  ec 
clesiastical  espionage.  It  had  lost  in  vitality 
when  its  democratic  constitution  was  destroyed 
by  Leicester  and  Laud.  It  was  swallowed  up 
by  the  colleges,  which  were  themselves  little 
more  than  adjuncts  of  the  Established  Church. 

Independence,  the  essential  attribute  of  the 
ideal  university,  was  lacking.  A  temple  of 
learning  should  be  supported  neither  by  the 


OXFORD.  1 39 

church  nor  by  the  state  ;  and  its  benefactions 
should  not  be  the  expressions  of  mental  caprice. 
Those  colleges  in  Oxford  have  prospered  most 
whose  fellowships  have  been  freest.  Of  these 
may  be  mentioned  Balliol  College,  noted  for  its 
high  scholarship.  The  rolls  of  Balliol  are  illu 
minated  by  illustrious  names  such  as  those  of 
Adam  Smith,  who,  like  Locke,  created  a  science, 
and  of  Southey,  and  of  Swinburne.  Its  present 
master  is  B.  Jowett,  the  Regius  professor  of 
Greek,  whose  delightful  translations  have  made 
Plato  the  familiar  of  the  English  reading  world. 
With  the  successive  creation  of  professorships 
the  university  has  emerged  and  again  taken 
form.  It  is  known  for  ripe  erudition,  and  has 
included  among  its  instructors  of  recent  years 
Liddell,  Stubbs,  Max  Miiller,  Earle,  Maine,  Rus- 
kin,  John  Richard  Green,  Goldwin  Smith,  Free 
man,  Froude,  Bryce,  Thorold  Rogers,  H.  Morse 
Stephens,  and  W.  R.  Morfill,  not  to  mention  a 
host  of  others.  Six  schools  of  honors  have  been 
established :  theology,  natural  science,  jurispru 
dence,  mathematics,  modern  history,  and  litercs 
humaniorcs ;  the  examination  system  has  been 
modified  and  perfected  ;  and  all  religious  tests 


140  OXFORD. 

have  been  abolished.     Once  more  the  university 
is  hospitable  to  men  and  thought. 

Any  sketch  of  Oxford,  however  fragmentary, 
would  imply  some  reference  to  Cambridge,  the 
twin  English  university.  The  two  institutions 
are  correlatives.  They  were  born  about  the 
same  time,  and  they  have  run  nearly  parallel 
lives.  The  rivalry  between  them  has  been  gen 
erous,  and  has  produced  more  than  one  neat  epi 
gram.  The  most  celebrated  of  these  grew  out 
of  the  persistent  Jacobitism  of  Oxford,  lasting 
even  to  the  time  of  George  I.  With  the  incom 
ing  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  Tory  Oxford 
was  restive  and  openly  favored  the  Pretender. 
The  new  king  sent  a  troop  of  horse  there  to 
keep  the  peace,  and  at  the  same  time  he  gave  a 
splendid  library  to  Cambridge.  This  evoked  the 
following  Oxford  verse  :  — 

"  The  king  observing,  with  judicious  eyes, 
The  state  of  both  his  universities, 
To  Oxford  sent  a  troop  of  horse ;  and  why  ? 
That  learned  body  wanted  loyalty  ; 
To  Cambridge  books  he  sent,  as  well  discerning 
How  much  that  loyal  body  wanted  learning." 

A  Cambridge  graduate  thereupon  made  this 
reply,  which  Dr.  Johnson  pronounced  to  be  one 


OXFORD.  141 

of  the  best  extemporaneous  productions  he  had 
ever  met  with. 

"  The  king  to  Oxford  sent  a  troop  of  horse, 
For  Tories  own  no  argument  but  force  ; 
With  equal  skill  to  Cambridge  books  he  sent, 
For  Whigs  admit  no  force  but  argument." 

The  two  universities  are  absolutely  more  effi 
cient  in  the  present  than  they  were  in  the  past, 
but  they  are  relatively  less  important.  Outside 
of  them  there  are  a  thousand  and  one  educational 
influences  which  did  not  exist  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  Then,  they  were  the  eyes  of  England, 
peopling 

"  The  hollow  dark  like  burning  stars." 

Now  they  seem  less  brilliant  only  because  they 
have  helped  to  usher  in  the  day. 


SOME  POPULAR  OBJECTIONS  TO 
CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 


SOME  POPULAR  OBJECTIONS  TO 
CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.1 


"You  gentlemen  never  weary  of  telling  us 
that  we  are  fallen  upon  degenerate  days  ;  that 
during  the  first  forty  years  of  our  government, 
before  we  lapsed  from  our  sinless  state,  officials 
were  removed  only  for  cause,  and  incumbents 
held  on  good  behavior  ;  in  other  words,  that  civil 
service  reform  prevailed  in  all  its  purity.  Now, 
it  is  philosophical  generalization,  founded  on 
broad  experience,  that  revolutions  do  not  go 
backwards.  Heed  it,  gentlemen,  heed  it !  The 
revolution  of  1820-29  is  an  accomplished  fact. 
It  is  here  to  stay,  for  then  did  the  people  come 

1  Such  of  these  objections  as  are  taken  from  the  records  of 
Congress  are  indicated  by  marginal  notes  and  are  quoted  lit 
erally.  The  others  —  which  reflect  current  lay  discussion  of  the 
newspaper  and  the  street  —  are  repeated  substantially,  but  not 
formally. 


146  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

into  their  own.  The  present  status  has  endured 
for  a  half  century  ;  civil  service  reform  is  ancient 
history.  You  are  chasing  moonbeams." 

The  fatalist  intrenches  himself  in  platitude, 
and  warns  reason  beyond  speaking  distance. 
With  him,  what  is  must  forever  be  ;  what  has 
been  and  is  not  will  never  be.  And  thus  is  the 
controversy  closed. 

He  forgets  that  much  that  is  done  remains  to 
be  undone ;  that  political  progress  is  mostly 
negative,  consisting  mainly  in  the  repeal  of  bad 
laws  or  in  the  abolition  of  evil  customs.  In  this 
sense  history  is  reversed  every  day,  and  the 
process  will  continue,  so  long  as  legislation  is 
experimental,  and  legislators  are  supine.  It  is 
true  that  some  things  in  political  history  may  be 
regarded  as  settled.  But  this  can  be  predicated 
only  of  those  changes  which  are  based  upon  the 
immutable  principles  of  right.  The  introduction 
of  the  spoils  system  into  the  administrative 
branch  of  the  American  government  is  not  of 
these.  That  system  is  at  war  with  equality, 
freedom,  justice,  and  a  wise  economy,  and  is 
already  a  doomed  thing  fighting  extinction.  Its 
establishment  was  in  no  sense  a  popular  revolu- 


CIVIL   SERVICE   REFORM.  147 

tion,  but  was  the  work  of  a  self-willed  man  of 
stubborn  and  tyrannical  nature,  who  had  enemies 
to  punish,  and  debts  to  pay.  He  overrode  a 
vehement  opposition,  disregarding  the  protest 
and  sage  prediction  of  the  .great  statesmen  of 
his  time.  He  wielded  a  power  that  was  arbi 
trary  ;  his  caprice  was  law,  his  rule  was  a  reign. 
If  he  wished  to  do  a  thing,  it  was  enough  that  it 
seemed  good  to  him  to  do  it.  His  idea  of  gov 
ernment  was  a  personal  one  solely.  Every  pub 
lic  official  was  a  private  servitor,  who  must  take 
the  oath  of  allegiance  and  do  homage  to  his 
chief.  In  his  view,  no  man  could  honestly  dis 
agree  with  him.  He  was  always  right ;  his  op 
ponents  were  hopelessly  and  criminally  wrong. 
Here  was  a  fit  man  to  establish  the"  spoils 
system,  to  explore  the  Constitution  for  latent 
executive  powers,  to  attach  to  the  person  of  the 
President  the  high  prerogatives  of  a  monarch. 
That  the  king  is  the  fountain  of  honor,  office, 
and  privilege  is  the  theory  of  the  English  state ; 
that  the  civil  service  of  the  United  States  is  a 
perquisite  of  the  presidency  was  the  theory  of 
General  Jackson. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  American  com- 


148  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

mon wealth  was  not  founded  upon  any  such  doc 
trine.  Jackson's  interpretation  of  the  Constitu 
tion  was  a  gross  perversion  of  the  intent  and 
meaning  of  that  instrument.  This  was  to  be  a 
government  of  laws,  not  of  men  ;  and  so  far  as 
the  prescience  of  its  framers  availed  it  was  made 
so.  The  liberties  of  the  people  were  not  to  be 
left  to  individual  scruple,  but  were  to  be  secured 
by  specific  inhibitions  upon  the  governmental 
agencies.  Three  departments  were  organized 
severally  to  make,  execute,  and  interpret  the 
laws,  and  each  was  to  act  as  a  check  upon  the 
other.  With  the  adoption  of  the  first  ten  amend 
ments  to  the  Constitution,  it  was  thought  that 
every  avenue  of  attack  upon  popular  rights  had 
been  closed.  But  the  power  of  construction  is 
greater  than  that  of  legislation.  The  intention 
of  the  lawgiver  is  determined,  not  by  himself, 
but  by  some  other  who  construes  the  law ;  and 
with  that  other  interpretation  is  purely  a  subjec 
tive  matter.  Madison  held  that  "  the  wanton 
removal  of  meritorious  officers "  was  an  im- 
peachable  offense.  But  Jackson  swore  to  defend 
and  to  protect  the  Constitution  as  he  under 
stood  it,  and  not  as  Madison,  one  of  its  framers, 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  149 

conceived  it.  Regarding  the  right  of  removal  the 
instrument  itself  is  silent,  except  as  it  provides 
impeachment  for  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors. 
When,  therefore,  Jackson  organized  the  civil 
service  into  a  gigantic  political  machine,  pro 
scribing  office-holders  because  of  his  personal 
enmity  to  them,  or  because  of  their  political  af 
filiations,  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  violated  any 
specific  provision  of  the  Constitution.  That 
such  action  was  an  usurpation  of  authority  and 
a  wanton  betrayal  of  trust  needs  no  verbal  em 
phasis.  With  equal  propriety  and  moral  justifi 
cation,  he  might  have  used  those  other  coordinate 
branches  of  the  executive  department,  the  army 
and  navy,  to  perpetuate  himself  and  his  party  in 
power.  This  he  did  not  attempt  to  do.  Perhaps 
he  did  not  need  their  aid.  At  any  rate,  after 
securing  his  own  reelection  and  after  naming  his 
successor,  his  ambition  rested,  —  fortunately  for 
the  country.  But  what  he  did,  he  did  thoroughly. 
The  system  of  political  brigandage  inaugurated 
by  him  has  subsisted  even  unto  this  day,  al 
though  it  is  now  upon  the  verge  of  dissolution. 
Its  end  is  written  and  sealed.  This  last  is  the 
work  of  those  who  are  grown  weary  of  the  spoli- 


150  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

ation  of  office,  — of  those  who  are  jealous  of  the 
encroachments  of  the  Executive,  and  who  would 
tie  the  hands  of  that  functionary  for  all  time  to 
come.  With  them,  it  is  not  a  question  whether 
a  clerk  holds  his  office  for  four  years  or  for  fif 
teen  years.  They  are  determined  that  the  great 
army  of  the  civil  service  shall  not  be  used  by 
any  man  or  by  any  set  of  men  for  purposes  of 
personal  or  partisan  aggrandizement ;  that  the 
freedom  of  elections  shall  not  be  assailed  by  an 
intriguing,  corrupt,  and  organized  official  force  ; 
that  presidential  contests  shall  not  be  tumults 
threatening  anarchy.  Hereafter  there  will  be 
no  "  prizes  of  victory,"  no  carnival  of  spoil. 
Place-holders  will  attend  to  the  business  for 
which  they  are  paid  to  attend  ;  fitness  will  be 
the  essential  of  appointment,  not  the  accident 
and  the  incident.  This  is  the  popular  revolu 
tion  that  is  moving  forward  irresistibly,  that  is 
coming  to  stay.  A  law  has  been  enacted  which, 
though  partial  in  its  effects,  is  capable  of  large 
extension  by  the  President  alone,  without  further 
action  on  the  part  of  Congress.  This  measure 
leaves  the  power  of  removal  for  all  except  par 
tisan  reasons  untouched.  By  regulating  the 


CIVIL  SERVICE   REFORM.  I$I 

method  of  appointment,  it  takes  away  the  temp 
tation  to  the  abuse  of  that  discretion.  It  is  not 
a  revival  of  a  faded  statute,  nor  has  it  its  counter 
part  in  early  legislation.  It  is  a  new  ordering 
of  things  ;  practically,  a  reversal  of  procedure. 
Although  there  was  no  statutory  restriction 
upon  the  manner  of  appointment  and  removal, 
during  the  first  forty  years  of  the  republic,  never 
theless  the  power  of  removal  was  controlled  by 
an  unwritten  law,  which  depended  for  its  en 
forcement  upon  mental  sanctions.1  But  this 
was  a  frail  dyke  with  which  to  withstand  the 
pressure  of  a  hungry  and  inflowing  sea,  and  it 
was  only  a  question  of  time  until  it  should  be 
swept  away.  That  Congress  did  not  strengthen 
it  by  positive  legislation  is  to  be  deplored.  But 
the  omission  is  explicable.  At  the  time  of  the 
formation  of  our  government  no  law  was  deemed 
necessary.  The  civil  service  numbered  but 
two  thousand  persons  ;  to-day  it  numbers  two 
hundred  thousand,  and  not  many  decades  hence 
it  will  increase  to  a  half  million.  Again,  Con- 

1  The  sum  of  the  removals  from  1789  to  1829  was  seventy- 
three.  John  Quincy  Adams  displaced  but  two  persons  during 
four  years.  His  successor,  Andrew  Jackson,  removed  seven 
hundred  persons  during  one  yean 


152  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

gress  had  absolute  faith  in  the  Executive.  All 
Presidents  would  be  Washingtons,  patient  and 
moderate,  patriotic  rather  than  partisan.  So 
highly  was  the  first  President  esteemed  that 
that  body  waived  its  consent  to  the  removal  of 
those  officers  whose  appointment  required  their 
approval.  Of  course  they  did  not  contemplate 
the  capricious  exercise  of  this  power  ;  the  cause 
less  removal  of  an  official  being  to  them  an  un 
thinkable  proposition.  But  events  outran  pre 
vision,  and  in  the  course  of  years  not  only  did 
a  Jackson  appear,  but  Congress  itself  ceased  to 
desire  to  protect  the  service.  Such  legislative 
changes  as  were  made  subserved  a  private  and 
not  a  public  interest.  The  immense  patronage 
which  was  controlled  by  the  Chief  Executive, 
either  directly  by  commission,  or  indirectly 
through  the  heads  of  departments,  came  to  be 
administered  for  the  benefit  of  the  representa 
tive  politicians  as  well  as  of  himself.  This  step 
was  gained  partly  through,  a  recognition  by  the 
President  of  the  eminent  utility  of  sub-allotment 
for  personal  purposes,  and  partly,  in  the  failure 
of  that  persuasion,  through  the  exercise  of  such 
coercive  power  as  could  be  wielded  by  the  Sen- 


CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.  153 

ate  in  confirmation,  and  by  both  houses  in  the 
passage  of  acts  regulating  the  term  and  tenure 
of  office.  Gradually,  out  of  the  chaotic  scramble 
for  spoil,  there  was  evolved  a  system  of  distribu 
tion  which  was  founded  upon  hoary  precedent, 
and  which,  in  nice  precision  and  in  perfection 
of  detail,  lacked  nothing  of  a  scientific  charac 
ter.  The  whole  country  was  staked  out  into 
districts,  as  many  in  number  as  there  were  Con 
gressmen.  After  a  conquest,  the  enemy  were 
driven  from  their  holdings,  and  the  victors  took 
possession  of  the  glebe.  But  the  estates  thus 
granted  were  made  conditional  upon  the  per 
forming  of  certain  services  or  upon  the  render 
ing  of  certain  tribute.  Each  tenant  held  of  some 
feudal  superior,  and  all  held,  mediately  or  im 
mediately,  of  the  lord  paramount,  the  President. 
The  governmental  offices  scattered  everywhere 
were  so  many  baronial  strongholds,  and  were 
filled  with  retainers  who  were  chosen  for  their 
fighting  qualities. 

The  chief  duty  of  these  men  was  to  check 
uprisings  and  to  keep  the  people  in  subjection. 
Their  places  depended  upon  the  faithful  dis 
charge  of  it.  In  other  words,  the  civil  service 


154  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

was  a  graded  vassalage  of  a  militant  character. 
All  offices  were  the  private  property  of  the  head 
of  the  state,  and  were  dispensed  by  royal  favor. 
What  is  this  but  feudalism  in  new  clothes,  or, 
rather,  the  garbed  skeleton  thereof  ?  By  some 
fantastic  jugglery,  this  mocking  semblance  of  a 
dead  and  buried  past  has  become  a  stalking 
figure  in  a  new  and  progressive  civilization. 
Verily  has  a  revolution  gone  backwards,  if  it 
be  not  promptly  relegated  to  the  glass  case  of 
antiquities,  there  to  remain  as  a  curiosity  for 
posterity  to  stare  at. 

The  spoils  system  should  have  perished  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago,  in  the  cataclysm  which 
destroyed  that  other  relic  of  feudalism,  slavery. 
They  were  twin  evils,  and  were  ever  unfailing 
allies  ;  and  when  the  time  shall  come  to  write 
the  history  of  public  opinion  in  America  during 
the  nineteenth  century,  they  will  be  classed  to 
gether.  John  Morley  says :  "  Nobody  has  yet 
traced  out  the  full  effect  upon  the  national 
character  of  the  Americans  of  all  those  years  of 
conscious  complicity  in  slavery,  after  the  im 
morality  and  iniquity  of  slavery  had  become 
clear  to  the  inner  conscience  of  the  very  men 


CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.  155 

who  ignobly  sanctioned  the  mobbing  of  the 
Abolitionists."  1 

Adherence  to  the  letter  of  a  contract  which 
was  "a  covenant  with  death  and  an  agreement 
with  hell "  was  due  partly  to  an  unfaltering 
instinct  of  Union.  But  many  were  influenced 
by  motives  less  worthy.  Before  the  war  the 
fidelity  of  most  Northern  politicians  to  the 
South  was  a  degrading  sycophancy.  Eager  and 
grateful  for  the  crumbs  which  fell  from  the 
Southern  table,  and  despairing  of  obtaining 
those  crumbs  elsewhere,  they  suffered  them 
selves  to  become  the  supple  tools  of  the  slave 
power.  These  "  Swiss  guards  of  slavery  fight 
ing  for  pay  "  were  a  race  of  place-hunters,  with 
whom  office  was  the  end,  not  the  means,  and 
whose  statesmanship,  like  that  of  the  Augustan 
Senate,  consisted  in  justifying  personal  flattery 
by  speculative  principles  of  servitude.  They 
steadily  prostituted  principle  to  preferment,  and 
came  near  involving  this  country  in  irretrieva 
ble  ruin. 

But  the  age  of  compromise  —  the  era  of  "  big 
otry  with  a  doubt "  and  of  "persecution  without 

1  Harriet  Martineau,  Critical  Miscellanies,  p.  268. 


156  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

a  creed  "  —  was  succeeded  by  the  age  of  blood 
and  iron.  The  war  was  an  ethical  education ; 
like  a  great  storm,  it  purified  the  air.  After  it 
was  over  the  people  began  to  see  more  clearly 
and  more  truly ;  they  learned  to  view  things 
"  in  the  visual  angle  of  the  absolute  principle." 

Before  this  keener  vision  the  spoils  system, 
a  long-established  practice  claiming  charter  by 
prescription,  has  been  called  upon  to  justify 
itself.  Until  recently,  the  people  of  this  coun 
try  supposed  that  traffic  in  place,  the  unceasing 
clamor  for  office,  the  sack  and  pillage  of  the 
government  by  the  dominant  party,  were  a  ne 
cessary  part  of  democratic  institutions.  Many 
politicians,  with  selfish  purposes  to  subserve, 
were  interested  in  enforcing  this  view.  To  the 
principle  that  the  majority  must  rule  they  added 
the  corollary  that  all  the  offices  are  essential 
to  that  rule.  They  further  inculcated  the  idea 
that  every  national  election  is  a  battle  of  ene 
mies,  instead  of  an  amicable  contest  of  friends, 
whose  interests  are  the  same,  and  "who  disa 
gree  not  except  in  opinion." 

It  must  be  confessed  that  during  the  Rebel 
lion,  when  the  North  was  divided  between  the 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  157 

war  party  and  the  peace  party,  there  was  some 
foundation  for  this  doctrine.  He  who  was  not 
with  you  was  against  you.  But  the  intense  par- 
tisanism  engendered  by  that  strife  is  relaxing 
into  an  amiable  toleration.  Happily,  party  fealty 
is  not  always  to  be  a  test  of  patriotism.  The 
government  is  not  the  property  of  faction,  and 
the  minority  have  rights  which  must  be  re 
spected.  "  Vae  victis  "is  no  longer  the  slogan 
of  the  fight.  If  civil  service  reform  has  not 
made  that  progress  which  idealists  expect, — 
conquering  all  on  the  instant,  —  let  it  be  re 
membered  that  the  growth  of  moral  movements 
is  necessarily  slow,  especially  in  a  democracy, 
where,  it  is  scarcely  hyperbole  to  say,  the  last 
man  must  be  convinced.  It  is  none  the  less 
sure,  however,  for  "one  man  in  the  right  be 
comes  a  majority,"  and  the  American  people 
mean  to  do  right  when  they  know  where  the 


right  lies. 


II. 


"  I  believe  this  commission  to  be  undemo 
cratic.  I  believe  that  it  favors  certain  voters  in 
this  country  at  the  expense  of  other  voters,  and 


158  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

I  know  that  if  the  rulings  of  the  civil  service 
commission  were  applied  to  the  members  of  this 
House  not  seven  eighths  of  the  members  would 
ever  reach  the  floor  again.  [Laughter.]  Now, 
sir,  believing  this  to  be  undemocratic,  and  be 
lieving  that  it  is  in  violation  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  government,  I  move  to  strike 
out  the  whole  section,  and  hope  that  it  will  be 
agreed  to."  l 

To  apply  the  rules  of  the  merit  system  to  the 
members  of  Congress  would  be  a  cruelty  indeed, 
and  is  altogether  a  harrowing  suggestion.  But 
it  is  beside  the  point.  If  civil  service  reform 
be  undemocratic,  and  if  it  violate  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  our  government,  the  motion 
made  in  the  House  of  Representatives  to  strike 
out  the  appropriation  to  the  commission  should 
have  prevailed.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was 
overwhelmingly  defeated  by  a  vote  of  twenty- 
five  to  one  hundred  and  thirty-eight.  This 
would  appear  to  be  decisive.  It  is  evident, 
however,  from  the  discussion  that  preceded  the 
calling  of  the  yeas  and  nays,  that  the  scope 

1  Mr.  Cummings,  Proceedings  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives,  December  19,  1888. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  159 

and  object  of  civil  service  reform  are  still  pro 
foundly  misunderstood  by  some  Congressmen, 
and  inferentially  by  their  constituencies.  A 
restatement  may  therefore  serve  a  useful  pur 
pose  :  — 

The  doctrine  of  civil  service  reform  as  applied 
to  the  subordinate,  clerical,  or  purely  ministerial 
offices  of  the  government  is  based  upon  the  fol 
lowing  self-evident  propositions  :  that  offices  are 
created  to  fulfill  certain  necessary  functions  in 
volved  in  the  routine  of  government,  and  no4t  to 
give  some  men  a  place ;  that  offices  are  sup 
ported  by  non-partisan  taxation  ;  that  taxation  is 
an  evil,  and  therefore  the  public  service  should 
be  as  efficient  and  economical  as  possible  ;  that 
offices  are  public  and  not  private  property,  and 
administration  is  a  trust,  not  an  ownership;  that 
in  a  republic  something  less  arbitrary  than  fa 
voritism  shall  govern  appointment  and  removal ; 
that  men  shall  be  appointed  solely  on  the  ground 
of  merit,  and  not  in  payment  of  personal  debt  ; 
that  an  examination  is  the  fairest  means  of  as 
certaining  the  qualifications  of  an  appointee,  be 
cause  it  insures  that  a  clerk  shall  know  how  to 
write,  a  book-keeper  how  to  keep  books,  and  a 


160  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

gauger  how  to  gauge  ;  that  such  examination 
shall  be  competitive  and  open  to  all,  not  being 
confined  to  the  members  of  any  one  political 
party ;  that  a  class  system  is  opposed  to  the 
spirit  of  our  institutions,  and  therefore  offices 
should  not  be  the  vested  property  of  ward-work 
ers  and  political  henchmen,  to  the  total  and 
absolute  exclusion  of  the  great  body  of  the 
common  people ;  that  an  office-holder  is  a  citi 
zen  of  the  United  States,  and  is  entitled  to  the 
rights  and  privileges  attaching  to  such  citizen 
ship  ;  that  neither  the  President  nor  any  other 
executive  officer  has  the  right  to  proscribe  such 
office-holder,  remove  him  from  place,  or  threaten 
his  subsistence  on  account  of  his  politics  ;  that 
such  procedure  is  un-American  ;  that  tenure  of 
office  should  not  be  dependent  upon  the  degra 
dation  of  manhood  and  the  prostitution  of  polit 
ical  opinion ;  that  the  practice  of  the  President 
and  his  cabinet  in  changing  two  hundred  thou 
sand  office-holders  at  will,  for  causes  uncon 
nected  with  good  administration,  is  dangerous 
and  despotic,  and  should  be  restrained;  that 
under  the  present  system  these  office-holders  con 
stitute  a  great  standing  army  of  paid  servitors, 


CIVIL  SERVICE   REFORM.  l6l 

ever  ready  to  do  the  bidding  of  their  patrons,  to 
the  perversion  of  the  public  will,  and  are  a  men 
ace  to  good  government  ;  that  political  assess 
ments,  if  paid  unwillingly,  are  an  extortion  and 
a  direct  theft  from  the  office-holder,  and,  if  paid 
willingly,  are  generally  a  brokerage  commission 
for  appointment,  or  a  bribe  to  the  appointing 
power  for  continuance  in  place  ;  that  if  salaries 
are  so  large  that  assessments  can  be  endured 
without  inconvenience,  such  salaries  should  be 
cut  down  to  a  saving  of  the  people's  money  ; 
that  promises  of  appointment  to  office  made, 
whether  definitely  or  indefinitely,  work  a  cor 
ruption  of  public  opinion ;  that  the  enormous 
bribe  of  two  hundred  thousand  offices,  offered 
as  a  reward  for  party  work,  tends  to  obscure  the 
real  issues  of  politics,  encourages  the  sacrifice  of 
principle  to  selfish  personal  gain,  and  induces  a 
laxity  of  political  morals  ;  that  a  "  clean  sweep  " 
of  the  offices  demoralizes  the  public  service,  and 
is  the  direct  and  indirect  source  of  great  finan 
cial  loss ;  that  skill  in  the  manipulation  of  a  cau 
cus  and  in  the  packing  of  a  primary  is  not  pre 
sumptive  evidence  of  capacity  for  the  perform 
ance  of  official  duties  ;  that  the  Constitution  of 


1 62  CIVIL   SERVICE   REFORM. 

the  United  States  contemplates  the  election  of 
a  Congressman  as  a  legislator,  and  not  as  a 
patronage-monger;  that  such  patronage  is  a 
burden  to  every  honest,  conscientious,  and  able 
Congressman,  compels  the  neglect  of  his  proper 
duties,  creates  petty  factional  disputes  and 
wrangles  among  his  constituents,  and  often  de 
feats  the  reelection  of  a  trustworthy  servant  of 
honorable  record  ;  that  the  statesman  is  thus 
rapidly  becoming  an  extinct  species,  being  suc 
ceeded  by  the  politician,  and  the  consequent 
loss  inflicted  on  the  people  through  crude  and 
unwise  legislation  is  incalculable ;  that  the  fear 
of  losing  the  spoils  of  office  is  paralyzing  the 
legislative  branch  of  the  government,  makes 
cowards  of  political  parties,  and  is  the  enemy 
of  progress  ;  that  the  retention  of  the  vast  pat 
ronage  of  two  hundred  thousand  offices  is  be 
coming  of  more  concern  than  the  triumph  of 
principle  ;  that  the  mania  for  place-hunting  is 
increasing ;  that  the  clamor  of  spoilsmen  com 
pels  the  creation  of  sinecures,  thereby  increas 
ing  the  taxes;  and  finally,  that  all  the  evils  here 
before  enumerated  are  growing  with  the  multi 
plication  of  offices,  and  will  ultimately,  unless 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  163 

checked  by  a  comprehensive  and  decisive  enact 
ment,  undermine  and  overthrow  the  institu 
tions  of  our  country. 

Such  is  an  imperfect  outline  of  the  doctrine 
of  civil  service  reform  and  of  the  abuses  it  is  de 
signed  to  remedy.  By  this  showing,  is  it  not 
the  spoils  system  which  is  " undemocratic,"  and 
which  "favors  certain  voters  of  this  country  at 
the  expense  of  other  voters  ?  "  What,  to  repeat, 
can  be  less  democratic,  less  American,  than  per 
secution  for  opinion's  sake  ?  Yet  this  is  the  very 
essence  of  the  spoils  system,  its  guiding  spirit 
and  its  crowning  infamy.  If  this  assertion  need 
further  explication,  it  may  be  found  in  a  recital 
of  what  takes  place  in  this  country  when  one 
party  succeeds  another  in  the  control  of  the 
government.  The  newly  elected  President  goes 
(by  deputy)  through  all  the  departments,  and 
may  be  supposed  to  interview  each  clerk  in  a 
conversation  of  which  the  following  is  typical :  — 

President.  Whom  did  you  vote  for  at  the 
last  election  ? 

Clerk.  That  does  not  concern  you.  I  am  an 
American  citizen,  and  have  the  right  to  vote 
for  whomsoever  I  please,  without  being  sub- 


1 64  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

jected  afterwards  to  a  governmental  inquisition 
by  you  or  any  other  man. 

President.  I  asked  the  question  in  conformity 
with  a  time-honored  practice,  and  shall  insist 
upon  an  answer. 

Clerk.  Very  well ;  I  will  answer  the  question, 
not  because  of  your  menaces,  but  because  I  do 
not  hold  my  political  opinions  covertly.  I  voted 
for  your  opponent. 

President.     Then  you  must  vacate  this  office. 

Clerk.  If  you  can  show  that  I  have  not  per 
formed  my  duties  properly,  or  that  I  have  neg 
lected  them  for  politics  or  for  any  other  reason, 
I  am  willing  to  go. 

President.  I  have  not  looked  into  that ;  it  is 
immaterial,  any  way.  I  want  your  place  for 
some  one  else. 

Clerk.  For  one  of  your  partisan  "  workers," 
perhaps,  whose  qualifications  you  have  also  not 
looked  into  ? 

President.     Possibly. 

Clerk.  By  what  right  do  you  proscribe  me, 
then  ?  You  are  merely  a  trustee ;  these  offices 
do  not  belong  to  you. 

President.     You  are  the  victim  of  an  illusion. 


CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.  165 

These  offices  do  belong  to  me.  They  are  my 
personal  patronage  and  plunder,  to  do  with 
whatsoever  I  will.  If  you  refuse  to  resign,  I 
will  remove  you. 

Clerk.  Very  well ;  I  will  yield  the  place  as  I 
would  my  purse  to  a  highwayman  who  puts  a 
pistol  to  my  head.  Nevertheless,  I  denounce 
your  action  as  an  outrage  upon  my  rights  as  an 
American  citizen. 

If  this  conversation  does  not  often  take  place 
actually  as  reported,  its  substance  is  at  least 
tacitly  understood.  Generally  the  clerk  stifles 
his  protest  and  resigns,  quietly  submitting  to  a 
system  that  is  an  heritage  of  barbarism.  Pro 
scription  of  minor  office-holders  on  account  of 
political  opinion  is  as  completely  indefensible 
as  proscription  on  account  of  religious  belief. 
It  has  no  proper  place  in  the  United  States. 
It  is  an  anachronism,  and  belongs  to  the  age 
of  the  crusades  against  the  Catholics  and  the 
Jews. 


1 66  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

III. 

"  Civil  service  reform  is  an  English  importa 
tion,  upon  which,  unfortunately,  there  is  no 
tariff.  We  broke  with  England  and  with  her 
monarchical  institutions  a  century  ago,  and  set 
up  a  government  of  our  own,  —  a  democratic 
government.  It  supplies  our  needs,  and  stands 
as  an  example  to  mankind.  Servile  imitation 
of  foreign  polities  is  unworthy  of  our  pride  of 
race  or  nation." 

Anglophobia  is  in  the  American  blood.  A 
common  law,  language,  literature,  and  religion 
do  not  of  necessity  constitute  the  ties  of  senti 
ment.  Although  the  American  people  afe  the 
heirs  of  all  the  ages,  they  do  not  like  to  be  re 
minded  of  their  obligations,  nor  to  acknowledge 
an  ancestry.  They  will  not  claim  kinship  even 
with  Shakespeare.  To  them  their  history  knows 
no  perspective ;  in  the  discovery  of  a  new  and 
virgin  world  was  the  beginning  of  things.  Eng 
land  is  the  traditional  enemy,  and  all  the  pretty 
speeches  made  over  London  dinner-tables  do 
not  alter  this  fact  in  the  least.  This  prejudice 
seems  to  be  enduring,  and  any  appeal  made  to 
it  by  politicians  is  generally  successful.  • 


CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM,  l6/ 

Happily,  in  the  present  case,  the  retort  is 
complete.  The  spoils  system,  with  the  stamp  of 
feudalism  upon  it,  was  imported  into  this  coun 
try  from  England,  where  it  had  obtained  in  the 
modern  form  for  one  hundred  and  forty  years. 
It  pervaded  all  departments  of  the  English 
state,  the  army,  the  navy,  and  the  church,  as 
well  as  the  civil  service,  attaining  a  growth 
which  it  has  never  known  here.  Offices  were 
openly  bought  and  sold,  the  purchaser  acquiring 
a  proprietary  interest  therein.  Rotten  borough? 
were  exposed  for  sale  in  the  market,  and  mem 
bers  of  Parliament  were  bribed  to  the  support 
of  the  crown  by  sinecures,  pensions,  and  money. 
At  the  time  our  government  was  founded,  the 
spoils  system  was  flourishing  luxuriantly  in 
England,  and  George  III.  found  it  a  most  ser 
viceable  instrument  in  enforcing  his  policy  of 
persecution  against  the  thirteen  colonies.  It  is 
a  pity  that  those  gentlemen  who  claim  the 
spoils  system  as  peculiarly  "  American  "  should 
have  forgotten  this.  It  embarrasses  their  argu 
ment.  Per  contra,  the  merit  system  is  a  demo 
cratic  institution,  and  its  practical  application 
to  our  civil  service  was  coeval  with  the  begin- 


1 68  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

ning  of  our  government.  That  England  should 
have  been  before  us  in  embodying  it  in  the 
form  of  law  proves  nothing  more  than  the  im 
mense  progress  which  has  been  made  in  that 
country  toward  popular  institutions. 


IV. 

"The  executive  power  of  Great  Britain  is 
hereditary,  and  changes  only  at  the  death  of  the 
monarch.  The  administration,  however,  changes 
at  will,  and  may  change  every  week.  There 
fore,  the  idea  of  life  tenure  for  executive  officers 
is  consistent  with  an  executive  for  life.  There 
fore,  an  official  class  of  lifelong  tenure  is  con 
sistent  with  monarchical  and  aristocratic  gov 
ernment,  which  is  peculiarly  a  government  of 
classes.  But  it  is  not  consistent  with  a  dem 
ocratic  government  and  a  short-lived  executive 
where  no  class  is  recognized  by  law  and  all  men 
are  equal."  * 

It  happens,  unfortunately  for  the  consistency 
of  this  argument,  that  in  England,  under  the 
modern  system  of  parliamentary  government, 

1  Senator  Vance,  Cong.  Rec.,  vol.  xvii.  Part  III.  p.  2949. 


CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.  169 

the  administration  is  the  executive.  The  execu 
tive  powers  of  the  crown  are  obsolete,  having 
passed  to  the  prime  minister  and  his  cabinet. 
But  these  officials  "  change  at  will ;  "  they  "  may 
change  every  week."  Consequently,  tenure  on 
good  behavior  —  miscalled  life  tenure  —  is  con 
sistent  with  democratic  government  and  a  short 
lived  executive.  If  civil  service  reform  is  not 
adapted  to  the  United  States,  where  the  Presi 
dent  holds  for  four  years,  a  fortiori,  it  is  not 
adapted  to  England,  where  the  tenure  of  the 
premier  —  the  real  executive  —  is  the  shortest 
and  most  precarious  imaginable.  Indeed,  what 
we  call  civil  service  reform  is  the  very  life 
of  parliamentary  government.  If,  with  every 
change  of  the  ministry,  a  "  clean  sweep  "  of  the 
offices  should  be  made,  the  English  civil  service 
would  soon  be  in  a  state  of  anarchy.  Under 
such  a  system,  rapid  alternation  in  party  control 
would  totally  disorganize  the  administrative  ma 
chinery  of  the  government,  and  would  be  a  per 
petual  threat  against  the  existence  of  the  empire 
itself,  —  a  thing  of  course  not  to  be  tolerated. 
The  situation  in  England  was  logically  reducible 
to  this  :  either  the  spoils  system  must  be  abol- 


I/O  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

ished,  or  some  one  party  must  be  continued  in 
power  indefinitely,  which  would  mean  the  de 
struction  of  popular  government.  There  could 
be  no  hesitation  in  choosing.  The  new  demo 
cracy  achieved  a  victory  over  feudalistic  privi 
lege  that  was  complete  and  final. 

Even  apart  from  any  political  principle,  the 
reform  has  vindicated  itself.  When  the  admin 
istrative  departments  ceased  to  be  asylums  for 
decayed  gentry,  and  were  thrown  open  to  public 
competition,  there  was  an  improvement  in  the 
morale  and  efficiency  of  the  service.  Reorgani 
zation  upon  the  basis  of  the  merit  system  was 
extended  even  to  India,  where  the  duties  of 
officials  are  of  a  most  delicate  and  complicated 
character,  involving,  as  they  do,  tactful  relations 
with  and  control  over  two  hundred  millions  of 
aliens. 

But  it  has  come  to  pass  that  civil  service  re 
form,  which  was  denounced  in  England  as 
"democratic,"  is  opposed  in  the  United  States 
as  representing  exactly  the  opposite  tendencies. 
"Aristocracy,"  "bureaucracy,"  and  "insolence 
of  office  "  are  expressions  as  familiar  as  they  are 
misleading.  They  deserve  a  brief  consideration. 


CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.  171 

Aristocracy  means  the  permanent  exaltation 
of  a  few  individual  names.  It  implies  great 
social  dignity  and  distinction,  and  generally  is 
based  upon  an  hereditary  succession  of  title  and 
land.  An  aristocracy  of  department  clerks  and 
mail-carriers  is  an  absurdity.  However  worthy 
such  persons  may  be,  they  will  have  no  more 
social  distinction  than  clerks  in  business  houses, 
whose  tenure  is  the  same  as  theirs.  Tfrey  pos 
sess  neither  title  nor  wealth,  and  are  condemned 
to  a  routine  of  labor.  The  effect  of  service  in 
a  great  government  machine  is  to  sink  individ 
uality,  not  to  exalt  it.  The  tens  of  thousands 
of  school-teachers  who  are  in  the  pay  of  every 
State  do  not  constitute  an  aristocracy.  In  fact, 
they  are  rarely  in  the  public  view,  and  this  for 
the  reason  that  they  are  not  "  in  politics."  For 
tunately,  the  spoils  system  has  not  been  applied 
to  our  public  schools.  If,  however,  it  were  the 
practice  to  dismiss  all  the  Republican  school 
teachers  whenever  a  Democratic  governor 
should  be  elected,  and  vice  versa,  without  doubt 
we  should  be  feelingly  assured  that  any  other 
tenure  would  seriously  imperil  our  institutions. 

Bureaucracy  is    another  chimera.     It  cannot 


1/2  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

exist  where  the  heads  of  administration  are  con 
stantly  changing,  where  admission  to  the  civil 
service  is  open  to  all,  and  where  the  removal  of 
the  unfit  servant  is  expeditious  and  easy. 

Insolence  of  office  is  an  a  priori  argument. 
It  has  been  pertinently  said,  in  answer  to  it, 
that,  at  the  time  tenure  on  good  behavior  was 
superseded  by  Crawford's  four-year  law  and  by 
Jackson's  regime,  it  was  never  urged  by  the 
innovators  as  a  reason  for  the  change  that  the 
manners  of  office-holders  were  contemptuous 
and  overbearing.  The  objection  is  an  after 
thought.  Of  the  insolence  of  bureaucracy  and 
of  the  arrogance  of  aristocracy,  the  American 
people  have  had  no  experience  under  any  official 
tenure,  and  are  not  likely  to  have. 

A  civil  service  becomes  formidable  to  the  lib 
erties  of  a  people  only  when  it  seeks  to  perpet 
uate  itself  by  interfering  with  elections.  Inas 
much  as  this  purpose  (to  override  the  public  will 
and  to  create  a  bureaucracy)  is  the  very  vice  of 
the  American  spoils  system,  speculation  as  to 
what  may  be,  under  civil  service  reform,  can  be 
profitably  postponed  to  an  observation  of  what  is. 

The  countless   minor  offices   of   the   United 


CIVIL  SERVICE  RRFORM,  173 

States  are  filled  by  a  distinct  class  known  as 
"professional  politicians."  These  men  live  by 
politics,  receiving  place  as  reward  for  political 
work.  Their  control  of  public  office  is  monopo 
listic.  Mr.  Bryce  estimates  their  number  at  two 
hundred  thousand,  but  this  is  an  underesti 
mate.  They  constitute  a  guild,  although  they 
are  not  organized  under  formal  articles  of  asso 
ciation.  With  them  office-getting  (or  keeping 
in  office)  is  an  industry,  and  the  fees  and  emol 
uments  are  accepted  as  payment  for  partisan 
services  rather  than  for  the  exercise  of  official 
functions.  The  influence  which  the  office 
holders  wield  is  altogether  out  of  proportion  to 
their  numbers  or  to  their  intellectual  attain 
ments.  But  they  possess  this  advantage  over 
other  classes,  —  they  are  unified  and  organized. 
They  make  the  management  of  primaries  and 
conventions  the  serious  business  of  their  lives, 
and  acquire  a  skill  and  experience  in  "  wire 
pulling  "  which  ordinary  citizens  cannot  hope 
to  cope  with.  The  politics  of  the  country  is 
in  the  hands  of  these  men.  The  people  elect, 
but  cannot  nominate,  being  reduced  to  a  choice 
of  candidates  selected  by  the  politicians  of  op- 


1/4  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

posing  parties.  These  politicians  dictate  nomi 
nations,  high  and  low,  and  afterwards  foreclose 
a  lien  upon  public  place  which  they  claim  to 
have  earned.  All  others,  those  who  cannot  show 
a  certificate  of  this  character,  are  excluded.  The 
spoils  system  has  been  compared  with  a  fairly 
conducted  lottery,  in  which  every  one  has  an 
equal  chance.  But  the  analogy  is  loose.  In  all 
lotteries  the  prizes  are  limited  to  ticket-holders, 
and  in  the  American  political  lottery  the  ticket- 
holders  are  few.  The  farmer,  the  shopkeeper, 
and  the  laborer  generally  have  not  the  remotest 
chance  of  preferment,  unless  they  can  produce 
evidence  of  partisan  work  more  or  less  technical 
or  questionable.  Of  course  the  number  who 
can  offer  such  credentials  is  comparatively  small. 
To  begin  with,  all  the  members  of  the  defeated 
political  party  (who,  under  our  electoral  system, 
constitute,  as  often  as  not,  more  than  one  half 
of  the  people)  are  rigidly  debarred.  Secondly, 
only  that  small  contingent  of  the  dominant 
party  who  have  been  of  practical  use  to  the  can 
didates  in  convention  and  elsewhere  receive  any 
consideration  whatever.  The  idea,  therefore, 
that  the  offices  are  in  the  hands  of  the  people 


CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.  175 

is  the  shallowest  of  delusions.  They  are  sold 
to  the  few  for  a  price  which  the  many  are  un 
willing  and  are  unable  to  pay.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that,  in  this  barter  and  sale  of  public  place, 
the  proper  transaction  of  government  business 
is  lost  sight  of.  Competency  does  not  appoint 
an  applicant,  and  cannot  save  an  incumbent. 
Other  motives  of  a  mercenary  or  selfish  char 
acter  control  in  both  cases.  Office  brokerage 
is  a  shameless  and  conspicuous  fact,  as  the 
newspapers  and  the  congressional  debates  daily 
attest.  It  is  the  great  object  of  civil  service 
reform  to  restore  these  offices  to  the  people, 
and  to  overthrow  the  bastard  aristocracy  who 
have  despoiled  them.  Those  good  citizens  who 
are  apprehensive  of  government  by  "  official 
caste  "  need  not  strain  their  eyes  to  the  future. 
They  should  look  about  them. 

V. 

"  The  political  disqualification  of  office-holders 
is  an  invasion  of  their  rights  as  American 
citizens." 

Civil  service  reform,  as  embodied  in  the  Pen- 


1 76  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

dleton  Act  of  1883,  does  not  deny  to  an  office 
holder  any  rights  which  properly  belong  to  him 
as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States ;  on  the  con 
trary,  it  restores  to  him  those  rights  of  which 
he  has  been  deprived.  It  protects  him  against 
partisan  discrimination  by  the  appointing  power  ; 
it  protects  his  salary  from  assessment  by  his 
official  superiors ;  it  protects  him  against  re 
moval  for  refusing  to  render  any  political  ser 
vice.  It  restores  to  him  the  right  to  think  for 
himself,  and  to  register  his  opinion  at  the  ballot- 
box,  free  from  the  espionage  of  the  informer. 
In  this  wise  the  law  protects  him.  But  civil 
service  reform,  in  its  gross  and  scope,  within  the 
statute  and  without,  looks  to  the  protection  of 
the  people  also.  There  are  certain  things  which 
a  citizen  as  a  place-holder  may  not  do.  He  may 
not  use  his  official  influence  to  coerce  the  politi 
cal  actions  of  his  neighbor,  to  wit :  he  may  not 
neglect  the  duties  of  his  office  to  do  a  hench 
man's  work;  he  may  not  pack  primaries,  manip 
ulate  conventions,  collect  and  disburse  election 
funds,  corrupt  the  ballot-box,  or  tamper  with  the 
returns.  Some  of  these  things  are  forbidden 
by  the  federal  and  state  criminal  law ;  others 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  177 

not.  But  whether  or  not,  any  and  all  of  them 
are  grave  breaches  of  his  duty,  both  as  a  citizen 
and  as  an  office-holder.  Yet  these  are  the 
things  which,  in  varying  kind  and  degree,  many 
officials  notoriously  are  doing.  Is  it  necessary 
to  characterize  such  partisan  activity  as  a  mon 
strous  evil  in  a  country  where  the  triumph  of 
right  is  a  question  of  majority,  or  to  justify  the 
executive  orders  which  have  been  issued  to  sup 
press  it  ? 

In  England,  more  than  a  century  ago,  the  in 
terference  of  office-holders  in  elections  assumed 
such  proportions  that  the  whole  body  of  subor 
dinates  in  the  executive  department  were  for 
bidden  by  law  to  vote  for  members  of  Parliament. 
In  1868,  after  the  introduction  of  the  merit 
system,  this  law  was  repealed,  as  being  an  un 
necessary  restriction.  If  a  man  procures  an 
appointment  on  his  deserts,  and  not  through 
political  influence,  the  obligations  of  appointee 
to  patron  do  not  exist,  and  the  temptation  to 
indulge  in  corrupt  election  practices  disappears. 
The  American  doctrine  of  the  relation  of  the 
office-holder  to  the  body  politic  was  set  forth 
(albeit  little  to  the  immediate  purpose)  by 


1/8  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

President  Cleveland  in  an  executive  order  issued 
July  14,  1886.     In  it  he  said  :  — 

"  Individual  interest  and  activity  in  political 
affairs  are  by  no  means  condemned.  Office 
holders  are  neither  disfranchised  nor  forbidden 
the  exercise  of  political  privileges,  but  their 
privileges  are  not  enlarged,  nor  is  their  duty  to 
party  increased  to  pernicious  activity,  by  office- 
holding.  A  just  discrimination  in  this  regard 
between  the  things  a  citizen  may  properly  do 
and  the  purposes  for  which  a  public  office  should 
not  be  used  is  easy,  in  the  light  of  a  correct 
appreciation  of  the  relation  between  the  people 
and  those  intrusted  with  official  place,  and  the 
consideration  of  the  necessity,  under  our  form 
of  government,  of  political  action  free  from  offi 
cial  coercion." 

VI. 

"  Is  a  competitive  examination  the  best  or  any 
test  for  official  competency  or  efficiency  ?  May 
not  a  man  be  eminently  competent  for  official 
preferment,  and  not  at  all  competent  for  a  com 
petitive  examination  ?  " l 

1  Senator  Call,  Cong.  Rec.,  vol.  xiv.  Part  I.  p.  498. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

The  system  of  competitive  examination  may 
not  be  perfectly  adapted  to  ascertaining  the 
comparative  fitness  of  candidates  for  place  ;  but 
it  is  the  best  that  has  been  suggested,  and  it  is 
infinitely  better  than  a  system  in  which  fitness 
is  scarcely  considered  at  all. 

It  accomplishes,  within  the  sphere  to  which  it 
has  been  limited,  the  chief  object  of  civil  service 
reform,  namely,  the  removal  of  the  ministerial 
offices  from  the  domain  of  partisan  politics.  It 
tends  also  to  increase  the  efficiency  and  to  de 
crease  the  cost  of  the  civil  service,  —  an  impor 
tant  though  secondary  consideration.  There  are 
some  kinds  of  officers  who  cannot  well  be  chosen 
by  competition  :  the  fourth-class  postmasters, 
for  instance,  who  live  in  sparsely  settled  dis 
tricts,  and  who  may  be  appointed  by  one  of  sev 
eral  feasible  plans  that  have  been  suggested, 
and  the  higher  grade  of  officers,  such  as  chiefs 
of  bureaus,  whose  competency  would  be  better 
assured  if  they  should  obtain  their  positions  by 
promotion,  based  upon  worth,  fidelity,  and  long 
experience.  As  to  the  intermediate  officers,  the 
system  of  competitive  examination  works  satis 
factorily.  The  official  duties  are  clearly  defined, 


180  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

and  it  is  an  easy  matter  to  test  the  qualifications 
of  applicants.  If  it  be  urged  that  business  men 
do  not  select  their  employees  by  this  method,  it 
may  be  replied  that  they  always  make  searching 
verbal  inquiries  into  the  capacity  of  applicants, 
and  that,  in  some  instances,  where  large  num 
bers  of  men  are  employed,  rigid  tests  have 
been  adopted.  In  fact,  competition,  in  some 
form,  is  the  unwritten  law  of  the  commercial 
world,  it  being  a  needful  guarantee  of  the  best 
service. 

It  is,  of  course,  possible  that  a  man  may  be 
"  eminently  competent  for  official  preferment, 
and  not  at  all  competent  for  a  competitive  ex 
amination  ;  "  but  the  chances  are  greatly  against 
it,  if  the  examination  be  "  practical,"  as  the  law 
says  it  shall  be.  The  civil  service  commission 
have  performed  their  duty  in  this  matter  judi 
ciously.  That  part  of  the  examination  which  is 
intended  to  test  the  general  fitness  of  applicants 
will  not  greatly  tax  the  mental  resources  of  any 
one  possessing  a  common  school  education,  un 
less  expert  services  are  required.  The  standard 
set  is  low  rather  than  high.  Sir  G.  O.  Trevel- 
yan  says  that  the  opening  of  the  English  civil 


CIVIL  SERVICE   REFORM.  l8l 

and  military  services  to  competition,  in  its  influ 
ence  upon  national  education,  was  equivalent  to 
a  hundred  thousand  scholarships  and  exhibitions 
of  the  most  valuable  kind.  Whatever  may  be 
the  influence  of  the  system  of  federal  examina 
tions  upon  the  education  of  the  American  people, 
there  cannot  be  two  opinions  as  to  the  effect  of 
that  system  upon  the  national  character.  It  is 
needless  to  point  out  that  a  public  contest  of 
merit,  into  which  any  one  may  enter  without 
fear  or  solicitation,  induces  high  endeavor,  and 
conserves  manhood.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
equally  patent  that  where  offices  go  by  favor, 
thrift  follows  fawning.  Women  seeking  an 
honest  career  are  reduced  to  importuning,  may 
hap  subjected  to  insult  ;  young  men  are  trans 
formed  into  mendicants  and  sycophants  ;  and 
the  position  of  all  applicants  does  not  differ  ma 
terially  from  that  of  the  Elizabethan  courtier, 
whose  ignominy  Spenser,  in  travail  of  spirit,  has 
described  so  vividly  :  — 

"Full  little  knowest  thou,  that  hast  not  tride, 
What  hell  it  is  in  suing  long  to  bide  : 
To  loose  good  days,  that  might  be  better  spent ; 
To  waste  long  nights  in  pensive  discontent ; 


1 82  CIVIL  SERVICE   REFORM. 

To  speed  to-day,  to  be  put  back  to-morrow  ; 
To  feed  on  hope,  to  pine  with  feare  and  sorrow  ; 
To  fret  thy  soul  with  crosses  and  with  cares  ; 
To  eate  thy  heart  through  comfortlesse  dispaires ; 
To  fawne,  to  crouche,  to  wait,  to  ride,  to  ronne, 
To  spend,  to  give,  to  want,  to  be  undonne." 

VII. 

"  This  is  the  civil  service  that  he  [Jefferson] 
taught  us,  sir,  —  '  Is  the  man  honest  ?  Is  he 
capable?'  These  were  the  only  requirements. 
If,  then,  he  is  a  man  who  is  deserving,  his  em 
ployer  should  be  the  sole  judge  of  it.  When  I 
make  application  for  admission  as  an  employee 
in  one  of  the  departments  here,  the  head  of  the 
department  is  the  man  to  inquire  into  my  qual 
ifications  and  honesty."1 

That  a  representative  of  Tammany  Hall 
should  arise  in  the  national  Congress  and 
gravely  inveigh  against  the  merit  system  on  the 
ground  that  it  does  not  embody  the  Jeffersonian 
requirements  of  honesty  and  capacity,  is  a  spec 
tacle  calculated  to  excite  pensive  reflections 
upon  the  decadence  of  American  humor. 

1  General  Spinola,  Proceedings  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives,  December  19,  1888. 


CIVIL   SERVICE   REFORM.  183 

That  "ancient  and  powerful  organization" 
might  have  informed  itself  that  the  Pendleton 
Act  does  not  prevent  the  "head  of  a  depart 
ment  "  from  looking  into  "  the  qualifications  and 
honesty "  of  an  applicant.  The  appointive 
power  is  not  transferred  by  that  measure.  No 
one  pretends  that  the  secretary  of  a  great  de 
partment  has  the  time  personally  to  test  the 
fitness,  by  examination  or  otherwise,  of  those 
applying  for  the  numerous  clerkships  under  his 
control.  Under  any  system  this  duty  must  be 
delegated.  The  civil  service  commission  is  a 
convenience,  simply,  and  is  created  as  a  guaran 
tee  of  fair  play.  It  does  not  appoint  ;  it  merely 
certifies  to  the  result  of  the  public  competitive 
examinations  held  under  its  auspices.  Its  func 
tions  are  ministerial,  and  its  inquiries,  may  be 
treated  as  preliminary.  It  is  true  that  the  head 
of  the  department  cannot  go  outside  the  list 
of  eligibles  in  making  appointments ;  but  it  is 
true  also  that  the  whole  public  is  invited  to  the 
competition,  and  thus  has  the  opportunity  to 
range  itself  within  those  lists. 

If  heads  of  departments,  or  rather  chiefs  of 
bureaus,  ought  to  choose  their  own  subordinates, 


1 84  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

then  the  objector  quoted  above  has  furnished  an 
excellent  reason  why  the  spoils  system,  which 
he  advocates,  should  be  abolished.  An  unwrit 
ten  law  governing  that  system  robs  the  chief  of 
bureau  of  all  discretion  in  the  matter  of  appoint 
ments.  Congressmen  dictate  to  him  whom  he 
shall  employ. 

The  questions  :  Is  the  applicant  honest  ?  Is 
he  capable  ?  are  not  controlling.  Practically, 
the  chief  is  precluded  from  discriminating  in 
quiry  ;  he  must  take  what  the  Congressman  sets 
before  him.  Nor  is  this  all.  He  cannot  dis 
charge  an  unruly  or  inefficient  employee  without 
endangering  his  own  head.  Numerous  instances 
might  be  quoted  to  show  that  clerks  who  have 
been  dismissed  by  the  chief  for  the  good  of  the 
service  have  been  restored  by  him  under  the 
pains  and  penalties  of  congressional  insistence. 

A  system  which  permits  outsiders  thus  to 
interfere  in  the  conduct  of  the  departments,  and 
which  transforms  the  civil  service  into  a  bank 
rupt  court  for  the  liquidation  of  political  debt, 
can  hardly  be  extolled  as  promotive  of  good  ad 
ministration.  Much  less  are  its  defenders  in  a 
position  to  assail  the  merit  system,  which  would 


CIVIL   SERVICE   REFORM.  185 

appoint  a  chief  of  bureau  by  promotion,  and 
which  would  secure  to  him  such'  independence 
and  discretion  as  are  necessary  to  the  proper 
performance  of  his  duties. 

VIII. 

"  The  duties  of  all  public  officers  are,  or  at 
least  admit  of  being  made,  so  plain  and  simple 
that  men  of  intelligence  may  readily  qualify 
themselves  for  their  performance  ;  and  I  cannot 
but  believe  that  more  is  lost  by  the  long  con 
tinuance  of  men  in  office  than  is  generally  to  be 
gained  by  their  experience.  I  submit,  therefore, 
to  your  consideration  whether  the  efficiency  of 
the  government  would  not  be  promoted,  and 
official  industry  and  integrity  better  secured,  by 
a  general  extension  of  the  law  which  limits  ap 
pointments  to  four  years."  1 

President  Jackson  himself  furnishes  the  best 
commentary  upon  his  own  text.  Without  wait 
ing  for  Congress  to  act  upon  his  recommenda 
tion  to  extend  the  four-year  law,  he  immedi- 

1  Andrew  Jackson's  first  annual  message  to  Congress,  Decem 
ber  8,  1829. 


1 86  CIVIL   SERVICE   REFORM. 

ately  put  his  theory  into  practice  by  making 
removals  wholesale,  thus  inaugurating  the  spoils 
system  as  we  now  know  it.  The  effect  was 
not  at  all  what  the  public  had  been  led  to 
expect  by  the  words  of  the  annual  message. 
Webster  said,  in  a  speech,1  that  during  the  first 
three  years  of  the  new  administration  (1829-32) 
more  nominations  had  been  "  rejected  [by  the 
Senate]  on  the  ground  of  unfitness  than  in  all 
the  preceding  years  of  the  government ;  and 
those  nominations,  you  know,  sir,  could  not  have 
been  rejected  but  by  votes  of  the  President's 
own  friends."  Nor  did  those  persons  who  suc 
ceeded  in  passing  the  ordeal  of  senatorial  con 
firmation  give  character  to  the  service.  The 
good  name  of  the  country  was  scandalized  by 
great  frauds.  The  loss  which  occurred  in  the 
handling  of  government  funds  during  the  eight 
years  of  Jackson's  rule  averaged  $7.52  per  thou 
sand,  an  increase  of  $3.13  over  that  of  his  pre 
decessor,  John  Quincy  Adams.  During  the 
administration  of  Van  Buren,  —  that  perfect 
exponent  of  the  spoils  system  and  protege  of 
Jackson,  — the  deficits  reached  the  great  sum  of 

1  Delivered  at  Worcester,  Mass.,  October  12,  1832. 


CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.  l8/ 

$11.72  per  thousand,  the  high-water  mark  of  in 
efficiency  and  corruption  in  the  official  history  of 
the  United  States.  This  marked  deterioration 
of  the  public  service  may  be  easily  explained. 
Incumbents  had  been  removed  for  political  rea 
sons,  and  not  for  purposes  of  administrative  re 
form.  Little  wonder,  then,  that  President  Jack 
son  should  advocate  the  vacation  of  office  by 
law,  and  thus  save  himself  and  his  successors 
the  odium  of  those  evils  which  follow  in  the  train 
of  an  arbitrary  and  indiscriminate  proscription 
of  place-holders. 

IX. 

"  Rotation  in  office,  change,  is  an  absolute  ne 
cessity.  Our  whole  system  abhors  perpetuity. 
Rotation  and  change,  the  frequent  examination 
of  the  servant's  accounts,  and  the  frequent  re 
moval  of  the  servant  himself,  is  an  essential 
element  to  secure  the  perpetuity  of  free  insti 
tutions."1  , 

An  examination  of  the  servant's  accounts 
should  not  wait  upon  removal,  and  the  servant 
himself  should  not  be  removed  unless  there  is 

1  Senator  Williams,  Cong.  Rec.y  vol.  xiv.  Part  I.  p.  505. 


1 88  CIVIL   SERVICE   REFORM. 

cause  for  it.  "  Change  for  the  sake  of  change  " 
is  unsound  as  a  political  principle  and  impracti 
cable  as  a  business  method.  It  would  wreck  any 
government  or  railroad  that  adopted  it.  In  es 
sence  it  is  a  pseudo-socialism.  The  theory  that 
the  citizen  owes  a  duty  to  the  state  is  supplanted 
by  the  doctrine  that  the  state  owes  a  place  to 
the  citizen  ;  that  government  is  a  device  for 
the  support  of  its  subjects  ;  and  that  every  man 
should  be  maintained  in  some  mysterious  and 
circuitous  manner  by  every  other  man.  This 
opens  an  alluring  vista  of  possibilities.  If  every 
one  "  has  a  right  to  an  office  ; "  if  incumbents 
should  be  removed  simply  because  they  have 
been  in  "long  enough;"  if  official  life  is  a 
"  merry-go-round,"  it  follows  duly  that  rotation 
must  successively  induct  into  place  every  adult 
in  the  United  States,  for  a  period  of  time  to 
be  ascertained  only  by  a  nice  calculation  in 
the  rule  of  three.  Should  it  be  objected  that 
rotation  is  not  rotatory,  —  that  is,  that  it  does 
not  include  all,  —  then  the  doctrine  Blacks  even 
the  apology  of  a  common  benefit,  and  becomes 
merely  an  alimentary  provision  for  a  few  hungry 
office-seekers.  As  such  it  will  not  commend 


CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.  189 

itself  to  the  popular  judgment.  The  people  are 
not  interested  in  the  fortunes  of  itinerant  place- 
hunters.  They  are  interested,  however,  in  hav 
ing  the  business  of  the  government  —  that  is, 
the  business  of  themselves  —  well  done.  But 
to  refuse  to  recognize  merit  by  promotion  ;  to 
remove  all  officers,  the  faithful  and  the  unfaith 
ful,  the  efficient  and  the  inefficient,  the  honest 
and  the  dishonest,  indifferently,  is  to  put  a  pre 
mium  upon  sloth,  bungling,  and  peculation.  In 
these  days  of  sharp  competition,  commercial 
houses  do  not  conduct  their  business  so,  and 
would  not  if  they  could.  To  employ  a  man  with 
scant  regard  to  his  fitness,  and  to  discharge  him 
despite  his  skill,  trustworthiness,  and  experience, 
would  be  to  court  ruin  and  to  build  up  rival  con 
cerns.  But  it  may  be  urged  that  the  govern 
ment  is  a  monopoly,  and  can  afford  to  ignore 
the  economies ;  that  the  American  people  are 
rich,  dislike  cheese-paring,  and  are  fond  of  "  mu 
nificent  public  expenditure."  Is  the  art  of  ad 
ministration  beneath  the  dignity  of  an  intelligent 
people  ?  It  should  be  their  pride.  The  United 
States  is  the  most  extravagant  of  civilized  gov 
ernments.  What  it  wastes  would  enrich  any 


IQO  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

third-class  power.  States  and  municipalities 
are  groaning  under  debts  recklessly  incurred. 
In  some  cases,  where  the  burdens  have  been  too 
heavy  to  be  borne,  or  where  the  public  con 
science  has  been  weak,  repudiation  has  left  its 
indelible  stain.  Princely  domains  have  been 
voted  to  railroads  by  federal  and  state  legisla 
tures.  Tens  of  millions  of  dollars  have  been 
sunk  in  the  improvement  of  unused  water-ways, 
in  half-finished  canals,  and  in  badly  made  roads. 
The  enormous  fees  and  salaries  paid  in  many 
States  to  county  officers  have  been  a  prolific 
source  of  office  jobbery  and  of  corrupt  elections, 
and,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  afford  a 
field  for  civil  service  reform  which  as  yet  is 
scarcely  explored.  As  to  municipal  government, 
its  name  is  a  byword  and  a  hissing.  Valuable 
franchises,  which  ought  to  yield  a  permanent 
public  revenue,  have  been,  and  are  being,  con 
stantly  given  away  to  corporations.  Insecure 
public  buildings,  defective  sewage  systems,  illy 
paved  and  illy  lighted  streets,  leaky  aqueducts, 
and  impure  water  supplies  commemorate  in  al 
most  every  city  the  carelessness  of  a  free  people 
and  the  unfitness  of  their  servants.  A  computa- 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  IQI 

tion  of  the  cost  of  government  in  this  country, 
made  by  some  careful  statistician,  would  be  an 
interesting  object  lesson  to  the  taxpayer.  That 
much-exploited  individual  is  awakening  at  last 
to  the  fact  that  something  is  wrong.  He  is 
beginning  to  doubt  whether  the  "  hustler  "  or 
the  "  worker  "  is  the  ideal  administrative  officer. 
To  choose  a  city  civil  engineer  because  he  is  a 
"  good  fellow,"  and  to  appoint  an  architect  of 
federal  buildings  because  he  is  a  cousin  of  the 
President's  step-aunt,  no  longer  seems  to  him 
to  be  a  wholly  rational  proceeding.  The  idea 
that  every  American  is  qualified,  without  pre 
vious  training  or  experience,  to  fill  any  office 
has  proved  to  be  an  expensive  delusion.  The 
most  incompetent  men  in  the  civil  service  of  the 
United  States  are  those  who  are  appointed  for 
short  terms.  About  3,500  of  the  higher-grade 
officers  are  so  selected  by  the  President  and  the 
Senate,  but  the  business  of  the  places  them 
selves  is  in  the  hands  of  subordinates,  upon 
whom  the  superior  is  helplessly  dependent.  As 
a  rule,  the  presidential  postmaster  knows  no 
thing  of  the  workings  of  his  office.  Although 
he  is  the  highest  in  rank,  he  becomes,  by  force 


I Q2  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

of  circumstances,  the  pupil  of  the  lowest.  He 
learns  his  duties  at  the  expense  of  the  gov 
ernment,  and,  as  often  as  not,  is  removed  at 
the  very  time  he  begins  to  be  serviceable.  The 
same  is  also  true  of  other  officers,  including  the 
members  of  the  cabinet.  The  case  of  the  last 
named,  however,  is  exceptional.  These  officials 
are  quasi-legislative,  as  well  as  administrative. 
As  the  political  advisers  of  the  President,  and 
indirectly  of  Congress,  and  as  the  exponents  of 
a  party  or  national  policy,  they  should  be  re 
movable  at  pleasure.  If  the  effect  of  this  com 
mingling  of  duties  is  not  always  salutary,  it  fur 
nishes  sometimes  an  agreeable  diversion  to  the 
disinterested  spectator.  The  facility  with  which 
members  of  the  cabinet  are  shifted  from  one  de 
partment  to  another,  during  the  same  adminis 
tration,  indicates  either  great  versatility  in  the 
American  administrative  officer,  or  (more  prob 
ably)  a  profound  and  impartial  ignorance  that  is 
not  less  impressive.  At  the  best,  the  technical 
knowledge  possessed  by  the  heads  of  depart 
ments  is  superficial,  and  the  rapidity  of  cabinet 
changes  merely  emphasizes  the  need  for  expe 
rienced  subordinates.  Indeed,  experience,  of 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  193 

which  duration  in  office  is  generally  the  measure, 
is  absolutely  indispensable. 

But  the  advocates  of  rotation  cite  the  many 
excellences  of  the  civil  administration  of  the 
United  States  as  proof  of  their  theory.  It  dis 
proves  it.  Parties  have  not  alternated  in  the 
control  of  the  government  every  four  years,  as 
the  Constitution  permits.  They  have  had  ex 
tended  leases  of  power,  and,  while  many  changes 
have  been  made  in  the  personnel  of  the  service, 
the  body  of  the  employees  have  been  retained 
long  enough  to  enable  them  to  become  familiar 
with  their  duties,  and  to  administer  their  offices 
with  economy  and  dispatch.  Mr.  Eaton,  the 
American  encyclopaedist  of  civil  service  reform, 
writing  in  1884,  said  that  "the  average  periods 
of  service  in  the  lower  offices,  of  late,  at  least, 
have  been  two  or  three  times  four  years,  and 
have  been  the  longest  where  administration  has 
been  best  and  politics  least  partisan  and  corrupt. 
The  average  time  of  service  of  the  more  than 
42,000  postmasters,  whose  terms  are  not  fixed 
by  law,  has  probably  been  about  ten  years,  at 
least,  if  we  exclude  post-offices  established 
within  that  period."  J 

1  Lalor's  Cyclopedia,  vol.  iii.  p.  904. 


IQ4  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

Here,  then,  we  are  face  to  face  with  the  diffi 
culty  (before  stated)  which  confronted  England, 
namely :  to  obtain  good  government,  either  the 
spoils  system  must  be  abolished,  or  some  one 
party  must  be  continued  in  power  indefinitely. 
"  Rotation  "  is  already  discredited  in  business 
communities.  It  exists  in  theory  only  because 
it  is  infrequent  in  practice.  A  few  successive 
trials  of  it  will  be  a  liberal  education  to  all 
persons  concerned. 

But  it  is  urged,  with  some  patriotic  fervor, 
that  "  our  system  abhors  perpetuity  ; "  that  ro 
tation  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  democracy  ; 
and  that  it  is  essential  to  the  permanence  of  our 
institutions. 

Whether  a  government,  established  for  the 
common  benefit  of  the  whole  people,  "  abhors  " 
the  "  perpetuity  "  of  anything  that  helps  to  se 
cure  that  end  is  a  question  which  perhaps  even 
the  wayfaring  man  might  answer,  without  invok 
ing  the  aid  of  the  casuist. 

The  government  of  the  United  States  was 
formed  as  a  protest  against  tyranny  ;  that  is, 
against  the  rule  of  unfit  and  irresponsible  men. 
The  fitness  and  responsibility  of  rulers  were 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  195 

among  the  germinal  ideas  of  the  Constitution. 
Hereditary  kingships  and  hereditary  houses  of 
legislation  were  abolished  by  that  instrument. 
Merit,  and  not  accident  of  birth,  was  to  be  the 
test  of  official  preferment.  Civil  service  reform 
embodies  this  ideal.  It  says  that  those  officers 
of  the  executive  department  whose  duties,  being 
purely  administrative  and  not  legislative,  are 
the  same,  whatever  party  is  in  power,  shall  be 
appointed  from  the  whole  people,  solely  on  ac 
count  of  fitness  ;  that  they  shall  not  be  secured 
in  place  for  any  fixed  term,  be  it  short  or  long ; 
and  that  their  tenure  shall  depend  upon  their 
good  behavior  and  efficiency.  Obviously,  this 
tenure,  which  means  the  instant  decapitation  of 
the  unfit  servant,  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
life  tenure,  which  means  a  vested  interest  in 
office. 

Several  facts  prove  conclusively  that  the 
founders  of  the  republic  took  this  view  of  the 
matter.  In  the  first  place,  they  fixed  the  term 
of  no  officer  in  the  executive  department  except 
that  of  the  President  and  the  Vice-President. 
Secondly,  they  provided  by  express  words  in 
the  Constitution  that  the  judges  of  the  Supreme 


196  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

Court  and  the  inferior  courts  should  hold  their 
offices  during  good  behavior.  Thirdly,  they 
applied  this  system  to  the  civil  administration 
at  the  very  beginning  of  the  government.  The 
allegation,  then,  that  a  tenure  of  this  character, 
which  was  an  established  usage  for  forty  years, 
is  radical,  revolutionary,  and  subversive  of  "  our 
system  "  may  be  leniently  ascribed  to  the  inac 
curate  tendencies  of  the  florid  and  rhetorical 
mind. 

Strange  as  it  may  appear  to  earnest  but  mis 
guided  vociferants,  there  has  been  no  statutory 
change  in  the  tenure  of  the  great  majority  of 
inferior  officers  in  the  civil  branch  of  the  ex 
ecutive  department.  Custom,  it  is  true,  has 
wrought  a  decided  change  in  that  it  has  substi 
tuted  a  tenure  of  favoritism  and  partisanship  ; 
but  no  legal  barrier  to  continuous  service  has 
been  erected.  An  appointee  under  the  spoils 
system  may  grow  gray  in  the  government  ser 
vice,  provided  always  that  he  can  gain  and  retain 
the  influence  of  some  potent  politician.  Probably 
the  advocates  of  rotation  will  not  greatly  object 
to  this,  if  the  incumbent  belongs  to  "  their  side." 
Indeed,  it  is  painful,  as  a  commentary  upon  the 


CIVIL  SERVICE   REFORM.  197 

perishable  nature  of  political  convictions,  to  ob 
serve  how  speedily  the  party  in  power  becomes 
reconciled  to  that  perpetuity  in  office  which 
erstwhile  was  so  abhorrent.  It  leaves  it  to-  the 
party  which  is  out  of  power  —  those  who  are 
unbidden  to  the  feast  —  to  become  "aghast"  at 
the  enormity  of  the  thing.  Did  not  the  domi 
nant  party  thus  acquiesce  periodically  in  a  stable 
holding,  the  doctrine  of  rotation  would  have 
vanished  in  disgrace  long  since. 

As  far  back  as  1835,  Mr.  Calhoun  pointed  out 
the  distinction  which  is  necessary  to  a  proper 
understanding  of  the  rotation  theory.  In  advo 
cating  the  repeal  of  the  four-year  law,  with  the 
ablest  men  of  the  Senate,  including  Webster, 
Clay,  Benton,  and  others,  he  said  :  — 

"  I  will  not  undertake  to  inquire  now  whether  the 
principle  of  rotation,  as  applied  to  the  ordinary  min 
isterial  officers  of  a  government,  may  not  be  favora 
ble  to  popular  and  free  institutions,  when  such  officers 
are  chosen  by  the  people  themselves.  It  certainly 
would  have  a  tendency  to  cause  those  who  desire 
office,  when  the  choice  is  in  the  people,  to  seek  their 
favor  ;  but  certain  it  is,  that  in  a  Government  where 
the  Chief  Magistrate  has  the  filling  of  vacancies,  in- 


198  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

stead  of  the  people,  there  will  be  an  opposite  ten 
dency,  —  to  court  the  favor  of  him  who  has  the 
disposal  of  offices,  —  and  this  for  the  very  reason 
that  when  the  choice  is  in  the  people  their  favor  is 
courted.  If  the  latter  has  a  popular  tendency,  it 
is  no  less  certain  that  the  former  must  have  a 
contrary  one."  1 

If  this  reasoning  suggests  to  zealous  advocates 
of  rotation  the  propriety  of  making  the  ministe 
rial  offices  of  the  executive  department  elective, 
and  thereby  amenable  to  the  people,  another 
quotation — one  from  the  publicist,  John  Stuart 
Mill —  may  be  permitted  :  — 

"  A  most  important  principle  of  good  government 
in  a  popular  constitution  is  that  no  executive  func 
tionaries  should  be  appointed  by  popular  election, 
neither  by  the  votes  of  the  people  themselves  nor  by 
those  of  their  representatives.  The  entire  business 
of  government  is  skilled  employment ;  the  qualifica 
tions  for  the  discharge  of  it  are  of  that  special  and 
professional  kind  which  cannot  be  properly  judged 
of  except  by  persons  who  have  themselves  some 
share  of  those  qualifications,  or  some  practical  expe 
rience  of  them.  The  business  of  finding  the  fittest 

1  Works,  vol.  ii.  pp.  445,  446. 


CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM.  199 

persons  to  fill  public  employment — not  merely  se 
lecting  the  best  who  offer,  but  looking  out  for  the 
absolutely  best,  and  taking  note  of  all  fit  persons 
who  are  met  with,  that  they  may  be  found  when 
wanted  —  is  very  laborious,  and  requires  a  delicate 
as  well  as  highly  conscientious  discernment ;  and  as 
there  is  no  public  duty  which  is  in  general  so  badly 
performed,  so  there  is  none  for  which  it  is  of  greater 
importance  to  enforce  the  utmost  practicable  amount 
of  personal  responsibility,  by  imposing  it  as  a  spe 
cial  obligation  on  high  functionaries  in  the  several 
departments.  All  subordinate  public  officers  who 
are  not  appointed  by  some  mode  of  public  compe 
tition  should  be  selected  on  the  direct  responsibility 
of  the  minister  under  whom  they  serve."1 

If,  to  suppose  a  case,  the  57,000  postmasters 
in  the  United  States  were  elected  by  the  people, 
what  would  be  the  efficiency  of  the  Post-Office 
Department  ?  Instead  of  a  coordinated  whole, 
regulated  by  and  responsible  to  a  single  head, 
there  would  be  a  multitude  of  independent  units 
—  a  debating  society.  The  Postmaster-General, 
denuded  of  all  authority,  would  be  a  figure-head, 
an  adviser,  not  a  commander.  Even  if  the 

i  Rep.  Gov.,  pp.  268,  269. 


200  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

power  of  removal  were  secured  to  him,  he  could 
not  exercise  it  without  affronting  the  judgment 
of  the  particular  constituency  that  elected  the 
displaced  officer.  Appeals  from  his  decisions 
to  the  electoral  bodies  would  be  frequent,  and 
would  result  in  endless  confusion.  Under  such 
circumstances  an  administrative  system  would 
be  impossible.  Blame  for  maladministration 
could  not  be  fixed,  and  responsibility  is  vital  to 
good  government.  "  As  a  general  rule,  every 
executive  function,  whether  superior  or  subor 
dinate,  should  be  the  appointed  duty  of  some 
given  individual.  It  should  be  apparent  to  all 
the  world  who  did  everything,  and  through 
whose  default  anything  was  left  undone.  Re 
sponsibility  is  null  when  nobody  knows  who  is 
responsible ;  nor,  even  when  real,  can  it  be 
divided  without  being  weakened."  1 

Municipalities  are  beginning  to  lay  this  lesson 
to  heart.  Government  by  boards  of  aldermen 
and  by  councils,  whose  members  are  answerable, 
not  to  the  whole  city,  but  to  separate  districts, 
is  a  famous  contrivance  for  ill  doing  and  not  do 
ing.  For  these  joint  feasors  there  is  no  common 

1  Rep.  Gov.,  p.  262. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  2OI 

court.  But  if  authority  were  fused,  it  would  be 
easier  to  mete  out  punishment.  A  mayor 
elected  by  the  whole  community,  and  endowed 
with  the  power  of  appointing  boards  of  public 
works,  would  receive  the  full  meed  of  praise  or 
blame.  Charged  with  malfeasance,  he  could 
not,  Adam-like,  lay  it  on  another.  Solely  re 
sponsible,  he  would  present  a  conspicuous  figure 
for  public  sacrifice.  Complexity  is  the  weakness 
of  popular  government ;  simplicity  is  its  genius. 
The  mass  move  slowly,  and  it  is  the  height  of 
unwisdom  to  distract  their  attention  from  one 
to  many  by  diffusing  responsibility.  This  rea 
soning  applies  to  all  administrative  government, 
whether  local  or  national.  It  tells  strongly 
against  the  four-year  law,  which  divides  between 
the  President  and  the  Senate  the  responsibility 
of  appointing  the  higher  administrative  officers 
of  the  United  States.  This  law,  which  is  the 
exemplar  of  rotation,  increases  the  power  of  the 
President  by  compelling  a  new  appointment 
every  four  years.  It  also  decreases  his  respon 
sibility.  To  use  the  words  of  Webster,  "the 
law  itself  vacates  the  office,  and  gives  the  means 
of  rewarding  a  friend  without  the  exercise  of  the 


202  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

power  of  removal  at  all."  l  If  the  friend  thus 
appointed  is  incompetent,  unfaithful,  or  dis 
honest,  the  President  can  plead,  in  extenuation, 
that  the  Senate  cooperated  with  him  in  the  se 
lection  of  the  officer.  But  the  Senators  them 
selves  escape  individual  censure,  because  all 
confirmations  occur  in  secret  session.  It  was 
said  in  defense  of  this  cumbrous  method  of 
choice  that  the  Senate,  in  acting  upon  a  nomina 
tion  by  the  President,  would  look  solely  to  the 
fitness  of  the  candidate,  and  that  "  its  advice 
and  consent  "  would  be  disinterested.  Experi 
ence  refutes  this.  In  many  instances,  nomina 
tions  are  ratified,  not  because  the  nominees  are 
fit,  but  because  their  names  have  been  sug 
gested  by  the  very  Senators  who  pass  upon 
them.  In  other  instances,  the  power  of  "  sena 
torial  courtesy  "  is  invoked,  and  nominations  are 
rejected  because  the  nominees  are  personally 
objectionable  to  the  Senators  of  some  particular 
State.  Division  of  responsibility  here  means 
division  of  spoil. 

The  first  four-year  law  (passed  in   1820)  was 

1   The  Appointing  and  Removing  Power,  U.  S.  Senate,  Feb 
ruary  16,  1835. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  203 

the  herald  of  the  patronage  system.  "  The  bill 
was  retroactive,  and  it  made  official  terms  expire 
upon  the  eve  of  the  presidential  election."  It 
was  drawn  by  Mr.  Crawford,  who  expected  to 
be,  and  was,  a  candidate  for  the  presidency  in 
1824. 

"  The  avowed  reason,  or  rather  the  apology, 
for  the  new  policy  was  that  it  would  remove  un 
worthy  officers  ;  the  speciousness  of  which  ap 
pears  in  the  facts  that  the  tenures  of  all  in  office, 
worthy  and  unworthy  alike,  were,  without  in 
quiry,  severed  absolutely ;  and  nothing  but  offi 
cial  pleasure  was  to  protect  the  most  meritori 
ous  in  the  future.  There  was  no  showing  of  de 
linquencies  ;  no  charge  that  the  President  could 
not  or  would  not  remove  unworthy  officials  ;  not 
a  word  of  discussion,  not  a  record  of  votes,  on 
this  revolutionary  bill !  "  l 

In  the  lapse  of  time  the  provisions  of  the  bill 
were  extended.  With  the  downfall  of  the  con 
gressional  caucus  the  initiative  in  the  nomina 
tion  of  Presidents  passed  to  the  country  at  large. 
Thus  it  happened  that  "  workers  "  were  needed 
in  every  quarter  to  advance  the  interests  of  can- 

1    D.  B.  Eaton,  Lalor's  Cyclopccdia^  vol.  iii.  p  900. 


204  CIVIL   SERVICE  REFORM. 

didates,  and  these  men  must  be  paid.    But  how  ? 
To  abolish  tenure  on  good  behavior  and  to  legis 
late  incumbents  out  of  office  every  four  years 
was  an  easy  and  admirable  expedient.    This  was 
done  in  the  cas,e  of  postmasters  drawing  a  salary 
of  a  thousand  dollars  per  annum,  or  more,  and 
of  some  others,  and  the  law  now  covers  nearly 
all  the   high-salaried  officials    on   the  civil  list. 
The  Pendleton  Act  affects  only  their  subordi 
nates  ;    and    our   administrative    system    to-day 
presents  the  anomaly  of  filling  certain  inferior 
offices  by  the  test  of  merit,  and  of  jobbing  out 
the  superior  offices  as  political  rewards.      If  the 
civil  service  act  is  to  be  honestly  enforced,  the 
four-year  law  must  be  repealed.     Postmasters, 
collectors,  heads  of  divisions,  and  bureaus,  who 
are  themselves  the  creatures  of  favoritism,  and 
who    are   daily  beset    by  "  workers  "  clamoring 
for   office,  cannot  be  expected    to    look   kindly 
upon  a  law  which   is   a  reproach  to  their  own 
existence,  and  which  denies  to  them  the  power 
to  pay  the  men  who  have  made  them  what  they 
are.     There  is  another  consideration  :   the  high 
est  positions  demand  the  largest  capacity  and 
the  longest  experience.      But  the  four-year  law 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  2O5 

makes  the  supply  smallest  where  the  demand  is 
greatest.  Again,  to  subject  subordinates  to 
ignorant  and  incapable  superiors  is  to  demoral 
ize  the  service.  The  lower  should  look  upward, 
not  the  higher  downward. 

It  may  be  admitted  that  there  is  a  deep-rooted 
popular  objection  to  the  repeal  of  the  four-year 
law,  and  the  reason  is  plain.  Federal  offices 
have  been  used  so  long  as  party  spoils,  and  have 
been  so  much  the  subject  of  contention,  that 
the  people  have  come  to  regard  them  as  not  less 
important  than  legislative  offices,  and  to  look 
with  as  grave  distrust  upon  long  tenure  in  the 
one  as  in  the  other.  This  mistake  is  not  un 
natural.  These  offices  are  filled  by  prominent 
politicians,  who,  by  reason  of  their  election 
work,  have  become  obnoxious  to  many  of  the 
community.  To  keep  such  factious  persons  in 
place  indefinitely  seems  to  the  public  the 
greatest  kind  of  an  evil.  But  the  repeal  of 
the  four-year  law  will  not  perpetuate  this  evil ; 
it  will  abolish  it.  It  will  bring  into  office  a  dif 
ferent  class  of  men,  who  will  be  little  in  the 
public  eye,  and  whose  energies  will  be  devoted 
to  the  public,  and  not  to  party  interests. 


206  CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM. 

So  much  for  the  doctrine  of  rotation,  seriously 
and  tenderly  considered.  Stripped  of  its  pre 
tentious  and  misleading  verbiage,  it  means,  not 
the  purification  of  the  civil  service,  but  the  dis 
placement  of  one  horde  of  office-seekers  by  an 
other.  It  is  the  cry  of  foray,  not  the  watch 
word  of  reform.  It  is  an  excuse,  not  a  reason. 
It  is  the  sign  and  symbol  of  a  predatory  raid, 
the  rallying  banner  of  landless  resolutes  en 
listed  to  an  enterprise  that  hath  a  stomach  in 
it.  Looked  at  in  any  way,  rotation  is  a  per 
petually  recurring  menace  to  the  stability  of 
our  government.  It  is  the  prop  of  a  falling 
party,  and  the  instrument  of  fraud.  It  is  a  con 
stant  temptation  to  politicians  to  use  public 
salaries  as  a  fund  with  which  to  pay  private 
debts,  thus  compelling  the  people  to  furnish 
the  means  for  their  own  corruption  and  to 
defeat  their  own  will.  It  wrecks  the  lives  of 
tens  of  thousands  of  young  men  by  offering,  as 
a  bait  to  cupidity,  high  wages  which  outbid  the 
market.  It  makes  idle  expectants  of  the  indus 
trious,  starves  the  few  it  feeds,  and  lures  the 
mass  to  vagrancy.  It  subverts  the  true  ideal  of 
office,  transforming  public  servants  into  private 


CIVIL  SERVICE  REFORM.  2O/ 

henchmen,  and  partisans  into  camp  followers. 
It  degrades  skilled  labor,  and  makes  the  govern 
ment  an  almshouse.  It  breeds  parasites,  mar 
kets  citizenship,  and  suborns  public  opinion. 
To  sum  up,  it  makes  of  administration  a  chaos, 
of  politics  a  trade,  and  of  principle  an  interest. 
Rotation  is  not  an  "  essential  element  to  secure 
the  perpetuity  of  free  institutions." 


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